CreditSights says Macau can still reach MOP236bn 2026 casino revenue target

CreditSights said Macau could still meet the government's MOP236bn (US$29.2bn) casino gross gaming revenue target for 2026, according to a report issued on Monday. Analysts Nicholas Chen and David Bussey wrote that recent monthly declines did not lead CreditSights to conclude the market had entered a long-term fall in demand. The city would need average monthly GGR of MOP16.3bn in the fourth quarter to reach the forecast, and October's results would give a clearer indication of whether the target remained achievable, the report said.

For the first nine months of 2026, official sources put casino GGR at almost MOP187.12bn, a gain of 3.2% year on year and 79% of the annual target. Monthly revenue averaged roughly MOP20.8bn over that stretch. CreditSights observed that this was more than the MOP19.7bn monthly average the full-year forecast implies, so the fourth-quarter average needed to hit the target sits under the September-year-to-date run rate. The 2026 forecast is MOP236bn, and Chief Executive Sam Hou Fai said earlier this month that it would not be revised. He also called October an important test, especially whether stronger visitor traffic would translate into higher gaming revenue.

September was the fourth consecutive month of year-on-year GGR decline. CreditSights cautioned against treating the run as proof of a structural change rather than a cyclical fluctuation, saying June and July should be excluded from the assessment because the FIFA World Cup had been the main influence on those months, and describing the declines of about 1% in August and September as relatively marginal. The report said the available data did not yet justify a conclusion that demand had weakened permanently.

CreditSights expects the October Golden Week's robust visitor numbers to give monthly GGR a lift. The firm noted that Sands China's management is optimistic about a seasonally stronger fourth quarter, citing the holiday and the NBA China Games held in Macau. Las Vegas Sands chairman and chief executive Patrick Dumont described the third-quarter result as unusual, given weaker high-end play. Grant Chum Kwan Lock, Sands China's chief executive and president, said underlying demand stayed solid, pointing to more patrons and more visits to the company's properties.

The report found the gaming segments moving differently. Mass GGR dropped 5.2% in the third quarter from a year earlier and made up 71.9% of the total, while VIP GGR was almost flat. September visitor arrivals were up approximately 16% year on year, yet GGR per visitor dropped 15% to MOP5,616, so the extra arrivals did not bring revenue up by a comparable amount. CreditSights sees visitor volumes staying the main driver of overall GGR, with a meaningful recovery in per-person spending still difficult, and it warned that GGR per visitor is merely a proxy for gaming expenditure rather than a measure of what individual gamblers actually spend.