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jul24 A fresh side bet option for baccarat play introduced to the Macau market –  known as ‘Small 6/Big 6’   – is now prevalent in all key properties promoted by the city’s six casino operators across Cotai and downtown Macau, based on GGRAsia’s recent site checks. Small 6/Big 6 – a variant of  the ‘Lucky Six’   found in Macau casinos – pays 22 to 1, if the winning ‘banker’ hand with a face value of six is composed of two cards. The side bet pays 50 to 1 for a winning ‘banker’ hand with a face value of six, composed of three cards. Macau casino operators Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd and Sands China Ltd had been the earliest adopters of this fresh side bet option. Both companies had already launched the offer at their respective properties  by early May , coinciding with the Labour Day holiday period. In  late May , MGM China Holdings Ltd and Wynn Macau Ltd also started offering the Small 6/Big 6 bet option at the mass and high-limit gaming areas of t...

ab25 MGM also garnered the attention – some would say the ire – of its fellow concessionaires last year, when it began handing out free snacks and ice creams on its main gaming floor. The practice was eventually limited amid concerns over the potential negative impact on local SMEs, but all reports indicate it was extremely successful in attracting new visitors to experience what MGM’s properties have to offer. It was also the best example yet of the ultra-competitive environment of today’s Macau, and, for a while at least, it saw some rare shots publicly fired between concessionaires. A year ago this month, Melco Resorts Chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho highlighted what he described as the “crazy behavior” of some rival operators when it came to promotional activity, adding, “I’m hoping that everybody will start being more rational and realize … it’s not healthy for the whole industry.” MGM Resorts President and CEO Bill Hornbuckle later acknowledged the comments were likely aimed at MGM ...

ev25 Macao’s rapidly rebounding visitor numbers are not translating to growth in per-person gross gaming revenue (GGR) at the city’s casinos, according to financial research group CreditSights. A recent note from analysts Nicholas Chen and David Bussey,  cited  by Inside Asian Gaming, observed that per-person GGR may have passed its peak, partly due to the  collapse of the junket market . Junket operators specialise in bringing affluent VIP gamblers to the SAR, but a number of high-profile  criminal convictions  has been accompanied by  government crackdown  on the once-incredibly profitable segment of the gaming industry in recent years. Chen and Bussey also noted that visits from China’s more wealthy provinces – the likes of Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin – had already recovered to their pre-Covid 19 numbers. “Any further visitation upside from mainland China would likely largely come from the other provinces with lower [...