It seems that Typhoon Mangkhut failed to make any sort of large impact on Macau’s casino profits.
Though the deadly typhoon reportedly killed several people and forced the Hong Kong government to shut down Macau casinos for an entire day over safety concerns, the storm hasn’t had any impact on Macau’s gross gaming revenue (GGR).
Predictions of Macau’s GGR growth have been lowered, but officials claim the site’s GGR is actually expected to increase by as much as 10% year-on-year.
Two brokerage firms released their predictions, claiming that GGR will only see a small fall compared to previous forecasts.
Sanford C. Bernstein issues its prediction last week, revealing that the GGR will be between $2.72 and $2.77 billion, representing an increase of around 3-4% compared to 2017.
Bernstein analysts Zhen Gong, Vitaly Umansky and Kelsey Zhu all pointed out that Macau’s casinos didn’t suffer any damage from the storm.
In a statement, they said: “GGR this month has been impacted by Typhoon Mangkhur which hit Macau during the weekend of September 15 and 16, with the closure of all casinos and disruptions to transportation in and out of Macau.
“Macau casinos had been shut down by Typhoon Mangkhut for 33 hours. The damage from the typhoon to casino properties was immaterial, but GGR was impacted as a result of the weather, casino closures and transport disruption.”
Meanwhile, Japanese brokerage Nomura also published its predictions, claiming that Macau’s GGR for September would be around 10% more than last year.
Nomura also claimed that the prediction would have shown a 15% increase from 2017 if it hadn’t been for Typhoon Manghkut.
While Macau’s GGR may not be affected badly by the typhoon, stocks for the casinos fell as much as 2.1% due to the 33-hour closure.
Meanwhile, Grant Govertsen, an analyst for the Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd., estimated that the casino closure is expected to cost Macau anywhere between 1.1 to 1.5 billion patacas in lost gaming revenue.
