Macau casinos attracting former satellite players with lower minimums
New gaming zones looking to bring in new players
Macau casinos are looking to attract players from the now shuttered satellite casinos with incentives such as low betting limits.
Citi’s Macau Table Survey, a monthly insight on action on Macau’s gaming floors, states that analysts George Choi and Timothy Chau saw new gaming areas with lower minimum bet tables at both Galaxy’s StarWorld and Melco’s City of Dreams. StarWorld had 16 tables offering limits of US$39 and US$128 whilst Melco’s City of Dreams had 15 tables woffering limits of US$64 to US$128.
The analysts said: “We believe these are their attempts to garner business from satellite casinos. At SJM’s Grand Lisboa Palace (in Cotai), Phoenix Palace has recently been converted into a Premium Slot area,” it said. “A new Dragon Pavilion room has been opened where its foreigner player gaming zone used to be and it is now Grand Lisboa Palace’s new premium mass room offering 12 tables with min bets of HK$3,000 to HK$5,000 (US$386 to US$643). Encouragingly, the average wager per whale player rose six per cent year-over-year to HKD176,583. Both the number of whales (60) and their average minimum bet (HKD2,432) reached year-high levels.”
The ‘player of the month’ in Citi’s analysis placed a HKD800,000 bet at The Venetian Macao’s High Limit Area for the second consecutive month.
In terms of market share in October, Sands China was first with a 27 per cent market share of total bets observed by the bank with Galaxy Entertainment in second with 22 per cent.
They believe that Macau’s casinos will have a fruitful Golden Week, despite 15 per cent fewer premium mass players year-on-year and 14 per cent lower total wager on the day they visited.
“We suspect the fall is due to this year’s eight-day National Day Golden Week being one more day versus last year, leading to some dilution in daily average visitation,” they said. “The average wager per player encouragingly held up, growing one per cent year-on-year to HK$28,466 (US$3,658). This is amongst some of the highest on our record, largely par to Labor Day 2025 at HK$28,654 (US$3,682) and National Day Golden Week last year at HK$28,150 (US$3,617). We believe these trends bode well for a solid Golden Week.”
By scheduling major events after the Golden Week holiday, including the NBA China Games at the Venetian Arena and a Jackson Wang concert at Galaxy Arena, the analysts believe that the October forecast of USD2.86bn GGR could be beaten.
