The Final Record?

The Macau gaming revenues hit record levels of US $13.7 billion in 2008, according to the Xinhua news agency. They reported the record levels of the online casino company, whose 2008 statistics were up mainly before the news of the recession broke. The increase of the online casino’s revenue in 2008 was 31 percent which equals a record 108 billion patacas, or US $13.7 billion. The news of the high numbers of 2008 come from the Special Administrative Region’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, which is the only place where gambling is legal in all of China. Their statistics for online casinos and land based casinos state that they had a 83.8 billion patacas or US 10.6 billion dollars in 2007 which was a 45.7 percent growth from the 2006 revenue.

The Special Administrative Region has a population of 550,000 people. They have 31 casinos and majorities are operated by the SJM. They actually have six gaming concessionaries in Macao. The leader in the online casino field is SJM, which is run by a local gentleman Stanley Ho. The other online casinos are run by the two US gaming operators Venetian Macao which are owned by the Las Vegas Sands and the Wynn Resorts. The largest casino in the SAR is the one that is operated by the Las Vegas Sands, the Venetian Macao casino resort. The region boasts a total of 4,312 gaming tables and 12,835 total slot machines available to anyone of gambling age to gamble their hearts out at. The figures provided from the last Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority showed that the Vegas strip earned a total of US $5.2 billion in the first 10 months of operation in 2008. The Macao casinos hope to see a return in their players for the new year.