Macau casinos had a wobbly 2019

The casinos of Macau have something of legendary place in the annals of gambling history. During the early 2000’s they roared to life on the strength of Macau’s status as a semi-autonomous state within the sprawling administrative giant that is the Chinese government.
At its height, Macau hosted endless junkets of prosperous Chinese businessmen and every month its casino industry brought in as much cash as the combine casinos of the Las Vega Strip would bring in all year. But that was then and this is now.
These days, the cash still flows in Macau, just not at the same pace it used to ten years ago. In 2019, Macau’s famously prosperous casino industry struggled a bit to reach its legendary heights during 2019. For the year, the casinos in the special administrative region of China brought in a little over $36 billion (USD). While that sounds like a nice pile of cash, it’s actually down 3.4 percent over 2018’s total. Even worse, the 2019 decline comes after two solid years of growth. By way of comparison, last year’s numbers showed a 14 percent increase over 2017’s numbers.
One reason for 2019’s tepid casino revenue was the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in mid-December. Xi’s visit to celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the island’s return to China after its years as a Portuguese colony meant that many Chinese nationals could not visit the island at all.
Macau is an important source of revenue to the Chinese government and its casinos are among the most successful casinos in the world. It will be interesting to see how political events, particularly in Hong Kong, will continue to impact its casinos in 2020.