Macau and baccarat: a great love affair

It’s not entirely unreasonable to liken a casino game to a lover.

They are both capable of taking you on an emotional roller coaster ride from the depths of despair to the peak of adrenalin fueled ecstasy.  They are both capable of costing you a lot of money. They can both be very good to you at certain times while at others they can both be downright cruel.

In romantic terms, Macau, or rather its players, are having one hell of a love affair with the game of high stakes baccarat.

According to Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau VIP baccarat accounted for 72% of total Macau casino action during 2010! That’s a staggering US$16.96 billion spent on one game alone…or rather one category of one game since this number doesn’t include what they call ‘mass market’ baccarat.

Putting the number in perspective, it’s more than twice the total revenue generated by all games played on the Las Vegas Strip for the same period.

Empty baccarat tables (pictured above inside the City of Dreams)  must indeed be a rarity in Macau.