The city’s casino gross gaming revenue, compiled at $3.98 million in MOPs, was its lowest monthly tally since a liberalization-era record dating back to 2003, data from the Macau government showed on Monday. JPMorgan Securities said its July tally averaged just 13 million MOPs per day, “2% of pre-COVID levels” in 2019.

“This shouldn’t come as a surprise given the casino closures and the semi-lockdown of the city for a month,” analyst DS Kim said in a note on Monday. So printing is non-event in our view.” Macau’s casinos, which were allowed to reopen on July 23, “business will be bleak for some time until continental visitors regain confidence to visit the city,” Kim suggested after a 12-day lockdown due to the COVID-19 community outbreak.

His memo was released in July after GGR data was released by the Gaming Inspection Coordination Bureau, a local regulator, also known as the DICJ. The June GGR has already been hit by the outbreak, which began on June 18, coinciding with tighter travel restrictions to and from mainland China, Macau’s tourist key source market.

“Casino facilities have reopened, but there are few businesses during the city’s ‘integration phase,’ considering the absence of incoming visitors,” JPMorgan’s Kim wrote. He added, citing recent mass testing of COVID-19 among Macau residents over the weekend, including Kim’s statement that “Macao’s social distancing policy could return to pre-lockdown levels as early as next week.”

Macau has recorded 1,821 cases as of midnight on Sunday, the latest community outbreak. There were no new patients in the 72 hours to that point. Travel rules on mainland China’s border during the pre-Macau COVID-19 outbreak eased after “14 days of zero-case” data in October 2021, according to a note from brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein on Monday. Based on that precedent, there was hope for “reopening the border” in the “early August” mentioned by analysts Vitaly Umansky, Louis Lee and Shirley Yang.

Technically speaking, the border between Macau and neighboring Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, is not “closed” – usually the main land entry point for mainland tourists to Macau. But the requirement that people wishing to cross from Macau to Zhuhai undergo a seven-day quarantine at a Zhuhai government-designated facility has made most leisure trips unreal for the time being.

Macau authorities confirmed in a statement Monday that leisure facilities in the city, including non-game offerings, including swimming pools and spas at Macau’s casino resorts, will be allowed to reopen. 슬롯머신

Restaurant dining services, which have been suspended since the start of the recent outbreak, can also be restarted from that date. However, the operator of all such services is obliged to request the customer to prove the results of a valid ‘negative’ nucleic acid test based on the samples collected within the preceding three days.