U.S. Gaming Stacks Bets on Web Poker as Macau Soars
  • Gambling revenue in Macau, the only place where gambling is legal in China, surged by 25% last month from a year earlier as players continued to play despite renewed economic concerns. The territory continues to stomp on Nevada gambling, which it first surpassed by revenue in 2006. Today, sales there more than triple those in Las Vegas.
  • The U.S. gambling hub saw a whopping 25% hike in revenue from May 2007 to June 2007 due mostly to Caesars’ hosting of the World Series of Poker, which skyrocketed in popularity with the help of online gaming. Poker revenue in Nevada casinos more than doubled from 2002 through 2010 alongside the soaring demand for web poker, with the number of poker tables climbing to 920 from 386 and games revenues jumping 134% to $135.2 million from $57.8 million.

  • It seemed web gambling wasn’t as much of an impediment on big casinos as the government had thought. Las Vegas revenue actually slumped to $12.47 million in October 2006 from $12.59 million in September after the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act first passed, according to the Center for Gaming Research.
  • In December, revenue in Macau grew to 23.61 billion patacas ($2.95 billion) from 18.88 billion in 2010, according to a report by the region’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. For the year, the region saw gambling revenue soar 42% to a record 267.87 billion patacas ($33.48 billion).
  • Last May, MGM Macau filed for a $1.5 billion public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, while shares of Galaxy Entertainment, which opened its flagship Galaxy Macau casino in May, climbed 62% last year, and those of Melco International Development grew 30%.Those gains were despite a 20% decline in Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index.
  • On Tuesday, shares of Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts and Wynn, the parent companies of some Western casinos in China, were each up more than 3%.
  • Back in the U.S., things are much less glitzy. Las Vegas saw modest success in 2011 despite a downtrodden U.S. economy, however with only 8.1% growth in Nevada gaming revenues in October, it is growing at a much slower pace than Macau.
Source: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technolog...s-macau-soars/