Macau collects $8.5bn in gaming taxes

The biggest gambling hub in the world collected US$8.5 billion in gaming taxes during the first nine months of the year.

According to provisional data released by Macau’s Financial Services Bureau on Tuesday, the government increased its take in gaming taxes by 17.5 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of the year.

Between January and September, Macau collected approximately US$8.54 billion in fiscal revenues that cone from gaming taxes, up from the US$7.1 billion that were registered between the first nine months of 2016. Gaming taxes were so important to the territory to the point that they amounted 80.9 percent of the government’s total revenue in the nine month period ended September 30, to US$10.3 billion.

Moreover, gross gaming revenue (GGR) during that period was 18.8 percent up to US$23.5 billion. The city estimated in its annual budget that it would rake in US$8.7 billion in direct taxes, but the number to date increases to 95.5 percent, therefore it is believed that it will surpass the original forecast.

Bernstein revealed that gaming gross revenue (GGR) is expected to report an increase of 13 to 15 percent year-on-year in October, especially driven by a continued growth in VIP activity. If the numbers continue to be similar during the last week of the month and GGR ends up increasing between 13 and 15 percent, the final number will be between US$2.9 billion and US$3 billion.

Furthermore, the number of Mainland China visitors grew 9.2 percent year-on-year during September operations and achieved 1.7 million. South Korean visitors also increased 10.6 percent, whilst Hong Kong and Taiwan reported a 14.3 and 5.8 percent fall respectively. Visitors from countries located in other continents, like the United States, Australia and the UK also reported decreases year-on-year.