Macau casino gambling: how big is it really?

Put simply…just over twice the size of Las Vegas. Using casino monthly revenue as the measure anyway. Using total buffet consumption as the measure may have yielded a slightly different result!

Casinos in the Las Vegas celebrated a rare reversal in sliding revenues when official figures revealed Nevada casinos took $944.5 million in August 2010, 10% up on the same month last year.  Casinos on the Vegas Strip took $544 million, up from $450 million in August 2009.

Meanwhile over in Macau, they’re lamenting a slowdown in revenue growth.  The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) released September’s figures and they reveal an increase of  only 39.8% on September last year – the slowest year-on-year monthly increase so far in 2010.

And the amount…15.3 billion patacas, or a touch over $1.9 billion.

They do say that business is all about positioning.  Looks like  being less than an hour’s flight from more than a billion eager punters is a pretty good position to be in!