Macao's pillar gaming industry is seeing a new boom as the gaming receipts witnessed a 43.5-percent year-on-year rise in the first quarter of this year.

 

Statistics issued by the government-run Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau showed Thursday that the gross gaming and betting receipts, comprising casino games, horse and greyhound races and a string of lotteries, stood at 18.06 billion patacas (US$2.26 billion) in the quarter.

 

Casino business alone dedicated 99 percent of the industry's gross receipts between January and March, the figures showed.

 

The gaming industry's gross receipts saw a increase of 8.6 percent over the fourth quarter of 2006.

 

However, the betting amount, generated by greyhound, horse races and four types of lottery witnessed a year-on-year decrease of 29.8 percent in the season, standing at 1.69 billion patacas (US$211.25 million).

 

The betting amount of horse races and football lotteries, two traditional hot gamblings, saw a year-on-year drop of 27.3 percent and 36.7 percent respectively in the quarter.

 

In the casino sector, slot machines, branded the hungry tigers, saw a remarkable year-on-year rise of 72.2 percent in the gross receipts in the first three months.

 

Meanwhile, the share of slot machines in the local gaming market, in terms of gross receipts, rose from 3.4 percent in the first quarter of 2006 to 4.1 percent in the first three months of this year.

 

Baccarat, the hot card game, totaled 15.45 billion patacas (US$1.93 billion) in the gross receipts in the first quarter, seeing a year-on-year rise of 46.8 percent.

 

The Baccarat game generated 85.5 percent of the gaming industry's total gross receipts in the season.

 

Most of the 18 games of luck offered by Macao's 25 casinos saw two-digit year-on-year growth in the first quarter, as Roulette, the traditional European game of luck, stood at the top with a 66-percent rate.

 

In the first season, the number of gaming tables rocketed to 2, 970, seeing a year-on-year rise of 79 percent.

 

The number of slot machines in the quarter also saw a huge year-on-year increase of 80 percent, standing at 7,349.

 

Macao's 25 casinos are currently run by four operators, with local czar Stanley Ho's Macao Gaming Company controlling 18, Hong Kong-based Galaxy group five, Las Vegas-based Venetian and Wynn one for each.

 

The local gaming and betting industry generated record gross receipts of 55.88 billion (US$6.985 billion) patacas in 2006, branding the city with a population of merely 500,000 the world leading gambling city.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 20, 2007)