Macau casino revenue falls 10% in October despite Golden Week and NBA games

October falls despite Golden Week and NBA games

Macau booked gross gaming revenue of MOP$21.68 billion (US$2.69 billion) in October, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau said. That was 10% below the same month last year.

October is the month Macau counts on most. China's National Day Golden Week falls inside it. This year the NBA China Games at The Venetian Macao added a draw early in the month. A 10% annual drop despite both suggests holiday traffic and one-off events did not lift spending enough. The bureau's monthly release does not break the decline down by operator. Which companies absorbed it is not public. Against September the picture reverses: October's total came in 20.02% higher than the month before.

September's MOP$18.1 billion (US$2.24 billion) was a low base. It flatters that 20.02% sequential gain.

Both comparisons describe the same market from different angles. October brought in more than the month immediately before it. Yet the holiday and event-supported total did not match the year-earlier figure. The annual reduction came after analysts had warned that Macau operators would keep facing headwinds. Their outlook pointed to conditions improving from a difficult September quarter. It did not point to an immediate end of the pressure. The annual comparison does not depend on September at all. On that measure October still trails 2025 by a tenth.

Year-to-date total stays ahead

Macau's GGR from January to October reached MOP$208.79 billion (US$25.89 billion). That was up 1.6% from the same period in 2025.

October's annual decline trimmed those gains without erasing them. The monthly figure of MOP$21.68 billion is roughly a tenth of the 10-month total. The third quarter is weaker still. Industry GGR for the quarter was MOP$60.4 billion (US$7.47 billion), according to government data. That was down 3.7% year on year and 1.3% from the previous quarter. Softer premium mass revenue was the main reason for that quarterly reduction. The monthly and quarterly figures show a market still ahead over ten months. It is losing ground against last year's pace.

Operator and supplier results point to uneven recovery

Company results published in the same week tell a mixed story. MGM China reported its 2026 third-quarter results on 28 October. MGM Resorts reported third-quarter financial and operating results the same day. Suppliers had a better run. Konami Gaming's first-half profit jumped 154% on Solstice sales, Asia Gaming Brief reported on 30 October. CDC Gaming reported on 28 October that analysts called Monarch Casino & Resort's third-quarter earnings solid. Those businesses sit at different points in the casino supply chain from Macau's concessionaires.

For anyone holding the stocks, the split matters. Macau's aggregate fell 10% in October while Konami Gaming's first-half profit rose 154%. The two figures cover different periods and different parts of the industry.

Base mass customers recover more slowly

Truist Securities said the base mass segment has been the slowest gaming segment to recover after COVID. The broker said operators built to serve those customers could face more prolonged difficulties than businesses with other market exposures. That assessment splits the market by customer type rather than by company size. It points to a longer recovery for the operators most exposed to everyday spend. Analysts still expect headwinds to be milder than in the September quarter. They expect an easier comparison as the market moves into 2027.

That view does not assume every operator recovers at the same pace. The bureau's aggregate data does not say which ones will.