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On Tuesday, nearly a week ahead of mainland China’s five-day Labour Day holiday season, some luxury hotels in Macau casino resorts were already indicating they had no rooms available for booking on the relevant nights.That is according to checks of the hotels’ own reservation sites by GGRAsia.China’s State Council has designated this year’s Labour Day holiday season on the mainland as May 1, a Wednesday, to May 5, a Sunday, inclusive. May 1 is also known as ‘May Day’.
As of Tuesday this week, 11 out of 32 local luxury hotel towers – most of them establishments at Cotai casino resorts – were indicating all five nights of the break as fully booked. GGRAsia’s search focused on the standard room category with either a king bed or two beds, accommodating two adults.The luxury venues with no rooms for any of the nights included: Grand Lisboa, the Macau peninsula flagship property run by SJM Holdings Ltd; Palazzo Versace Macau (pictured) and The Karl Lagerfeld, two towers at the group’s Cotai property Grand Lisboa Palace; and the hotel at MGM Macau, run by MGM China Holdings Ltd on the city’s peninsula.
Also full for the upcoming holidays were: Epic Tower, part of Phase 2 at Studio City, a property promoted by Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd; plus Galaxy Hotel, Banyan Tree Macau, Hotel Okura Macau, JW Marriott Hotel Macau, The Ritz-Carlton, Macau and Raffles at Galaxy Macau, all located at Cotai casino resort complex Galaxy Macau, run by Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd.Luxury hotels within casino resorts indicating no rooms publicly available for four out of the five festive nights were: MGM Cotai’s M Tower and Emerald Tower; Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace, operated by Wynn Macau Ltd; Nüwa and Morpheus, both at City of Dreams Macau, promoted by Melco Resorts; plus the Venetian Macao and the Parisian Macao, promoted by Sands China Ltd.
Nightly rates of the still-available hotel rooms in Cotai for the Labour Day holiday season were mostly above MOP3,000 (US$372), excluding taxes and other service charges. The rates indicated a peak on the second and third day of the five-day break. Some Cotai casino resort standard-room accommodation was priced at more than MOP5,000 a night for those days.Macau might receive during the period, said the head of the Macao Government Tourism Office in comments to media last week.Macau logged during the 2023 Labour Day holiday season, which also ran for five days on the mainland, from April 29 to May 3 that year. The city’s average hotel occupancy during the period was 85 percent, according to tourism office data.
All 32 legislators present at a Wednesday plenary session of Macau’s Legislative Assembly (pictured in a file photo) voted in favour of a second and final reading to a government-proposed gambling crimes bill. It explicitly targets the ‘multiplier’ practice as an illegal operation of games of fortune, and bans operation or promotion of unauthorised online gambling, as well as criminalising gambling-related unlicensed money exchange.
The measure, called the “Law to Combat Crimes of Illegal Gambling”, was first outlined by the government in December and had a first reading in the assembly in February. The bill has since been scrutinised by a Legislative Assembly committee led by veteran legislator Chan Chak Mo.
In Wednesday discussion of the bill, legislators Leong Sun Iok and José Pereira Coutinho were among those mentioning that money touts that have been present in or around the city’s casinos, have been a “hassle” to casino staff and to tourists.
At the plenary session, André Cheong Weng Chon, the city’s Secretary for Administration and Justice, gave some commentary on the bill. He reiterated – regarding the particular article dealing with money changing – the Macau government’s position. This was that for the purposes of pursuing criminal prosecutions, the authorities would look not only at whether unlicensed money exchange happened within casino precincts, but also whether such gambling-linked activity was happening as a “trade” activity, off-site.
Despite voicing overall support for the provision in the bill, Mr Coutinho did query how easy it would be pursue a criminal case – in terms of investigation and evidence gathering – if such activity happened away from casino premises.
Another notable aspect of the bill – an overhaul to the existing illegal gambling regime – is to define and set the penalties for any illegal operation of games of fortune, mutual betting, online games of fortune or online mutual betting, and lotteries. That is according to a government explanation in a so-called opinion paper covering key discussions of the bill.
The bill sets a prison term ranging from “one to eight years” for a number of defined crimes. They are respectively, illegal operation of: games of fortune; online gambling; and mutual betting. The ceiling of the possible prison term is raised from a maximum of three years applicable for crimes of the same nature, under the previous legal regime covering illegal gambling.
In the bill, the government had also proposed a casino entry ban, that could be applied across a variety of durations, for those found to have committed certain crimes. The offences resulting in an entry ban include: illegal operation of games of fortune; extending illicit loans for gambling purposes; and illicit money exchange for gambling purposes.
Also linked to an entry ban were: the crime of coercing others to gamble or provide resources for gambling; and fraudulent gambling activities.
The Macau foreign exchange (FX) tout “crackdown” appears to have “stabilised”, with “investors’ concerns likely overdone” regarding the city’s casino sector, says a Tuesday report from brokerage CLSA Ltd.
The institution observed that Macau’s August gross gaming revenue (GGR) had grown month-on-month. That data point was subsequent to publicity about enhanced enforcement in Macau and on the Chinese mainland against unlicensed touts that linger near Macau casinos and offer to change Chinese yuan into Hong Kong dollars and vice versa.
On Tuesday the Macau authorities also publicised an update on ‘Thunderstorm 2024′, the latest edition of an annual anti-crime sweep done in collaboration with the mainland authorities and Hong Kong.
CLSA analysts Jeffrey Kiang and Leo Pan wrote in their Tuesday assessment that for the Macau gaming sector, there was a “sign of [a] stabilised crackdown”.
They added: “Despite illicit money exchange crackdown, August GGR increased 6 percent month-on-month to [circa] MOP19.8 billion [US$2.46 billion].”
“Although this should partially be a weaker base in July due to various sports events” that had taken place internationally that month, and had “diluted foot traffic, the actual growth in GGR signals to us that [a] crackdown in Macau should have stabilised,” the analysts observed.
CLSA said such an analysis “echoes” Macau operator Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd’s management commentary in its interim results briefing in mid-August that “business momentum has been intact in third-quarter 2024 thus far”.
CLSA observed that as “we have more clarity” regarding “the impact from the crackdown, we cut our 2024 calendar-year and 2025 calendar-year sector GGR forecast by 2 percent to US$28.4 billion and US$29.6 billion,” respectively.
The institution’s analysts added: “We are in line with consensus on 2024 calendar year, but 1 percent below consensus in 2025 calendar year.”
The brokerage stated that concerning “October’s Golden Week” – a reference to an approaching week-long holiday in mainland China coinciding with China’s National Day on October 1 – CLSA’s “proprietary data suggest hotel booking” levels had “not trended down”.
The analysts observed that “28 out of 34 hotels” it tracks were “fully booked on the weekend of 5 October”.
The brokerage said its research indicated that the “average room rate” of the hotels it surveyed on the matter was, for October Golden Week, at a level equal to US$499 per night.
The Macau government has proposed criminalising unlicensed money trading in the gaming and non-gaming areas of any casino venue within the city, via an amendment to a draft bill called the “Law to Combat Gambling Crimes”.