Why is Macau so popular among mainland Chinese ?

Gambling and geography play a crucial part in the SAR ’ s appeal , says Annie Siara of 86 Connects

Gambling Chinese people love to gamble . Macau is a special administrative region of China and the only place in the country where casinos are legal . Gambling in China can be traced back 4,000 years , and traditional Chinese games like Pai gow and Mahjong can still be found in some Macau casinos .

The thrill of casinos is what makes Macau so popular among Chinese gamblers .

Geography Macau is located on the western side of the

Pearl River and is just 60km west of Hong Kong . Macau ’ s neighbouring Guangdong province is the most populous province in China and home to 126 million people , according to the country ’ s latest census .

There are four different ways to travel into Macau from mainland China : by foot , by land , by sea and by air . In 2019 , 15,487 inbound flights were from mainland China . The familiarity of the food , culture and language make it a convenient place to travel to , especially for the primary consumer market of a typical mainland Chinese gambler .

A typical average high-end Chinese gaming customer in Macau pre-pandemic

Source : ‘ China Consumer : Where to Play , How to Win … Premium is the New Mainstream ’ report by Bernstein

margins for these guys are 30-40 %, quite different from the junkets that use their own non-negotiable chips and high commissions , rendering the profit margin close to 10 %,” he explains . “ So the elusive segment for operators is the upper levels of mass .”

THE IMPORTANCE OF NON-GAMING

This mass market focus also feeds into a broader directive from Macau ’ s government to reduce the SAR ’ s dependence on gaming .

“ The previous chief executive of Macau was told by the president of China to reduce reliance on gaming and increase tourism ,” Wieners says . “ When the CEO changed , they said that goal hadn ’ t been achieved ; things grew a bit but the goal of increasing non-gaming and sustainable tourism remained key .

“ Under its current CEO it has been incumbent on operators to develop a strong non-gaming , mass market proposition .”

This is reflected in the 2019 report by the Macau Statistics and Census Service ’ s Statistical Indicator System for Moderate Economic Diversification of Macao . It reveals that while VIP gaming accounted for 69.4 % of gaming revenue in 2012 , this had declined to 55.0 % by 2018 , before falling below mass-market table gaming for the first

June 2021