Casino executives in Macau are confident that the slowdown of recent years is behind them amid a broad recovery in luxury goods demand in China.
The only part of China where casinos are legal, Macau was hit hard by President Xi Jinping’s corruption crackdown and austerity drive, which scared away many of the high-rollers who had helped revenues surge in previous years.
Macau is the world’s largest gambling centre but revenues have declined sharply since 2014 — when China’s corruption crackdown first began to hit the enclave. The six casino operators in Macau have seen their combined market capitalisation fall 46 per cent since early 2014, wiping out $97.7bn of shareholder value.