Tim Alper iGaming Journalist
Tim Alper is a journalist covering betting news and regulation for CasinoBeats, with a focus on regulatory developments and international markets. He reports on breaking stories across Europe and Asia, including gambling law changes and...
Read Full BioMacao casino revenues increased by 4.5% year-on-year last month, as Lunar New Year holidays brought more visitors to the Pearl River Delta special administrative region’s resorts.
The region’s gambling regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, said Macao’s gross gaming revenue for February was 20.62 billion patacas (worth $2.56 billion), Bloomberg reported.
The regulator said the results were above analyst estimates of a 1% year-on-year increase.
Macao Casino Revenues: On the Up & Up
The bureau also noted that the sector’s revenues are now up to over 81% of 2019’s pre-coronavirus pandemic levels.
Macao casinos say they offered visitors a range of special programs during the Lunar New Year holidays, a time when Mainland Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian tourists frequently travel to Macao.
The first two months of the year have proven lucrative for Macao casino revenues, the regulator said. It announced that gross gaming revenue rose to $5.37 billion in January-February, up 14% year on year from 2025.
However, the media outlet reported that the sector is under pressure to cut costs while still maintaining its appeal to visitors.
Analysts say Macao’s gaming revenues could face limited short-term growth due to a Mainland Chinese economic slowdown.
China’s economy is in the grip of a broader property market slump, the media outlet wrote, with high youth unemployment and global trade conflicts also affecting casino spending.
Asia-Wide Growth
Casino footfall and revenue figures are up across East Asia. Last month, the South Korean news outlet Yonhap reported that Paradise posted record annual revenues of 1.1499 trillion won (almost $8 billion) for 2025, with operating profits rising 15% year-on-year to $105 million, also a record for the company.
Paradise, which operates the Paradise City casino near Incheon International Airport, also said its casino revenue in the fourth quarter of last year increased by over 11% to reach KRW 227.1 billion ($152 million).
The firm has snapped up the Grand Hyatt Incheon’s West Tower in a recent business deal. This will see it add over 500 guest rooms to its resort.
And Paradise has sealed a partnership deal with the Tokyo-based travel firm HIS, the South Korean media outlet Newsis reported.
Paradise City Managing Director Kim Jae-hwan said the deal would help “strengthen marketing drives” for Japanese customers, calling Japanese visitors “Paradise City’s main customer base.”
Share prices in Paradise and its closest casino-operating rivals have continued to tumble along with the rest of the South Korean stock market this month.
Paradise prices have dropped almost 10% over the past five days on the Korea Exchange. Grand Korea Leisure’s share prices are down over 4% over the same period.
Share prices in Kangwon Land, the operator of South Korea’s only domestic passport holder-admitting casino, also saw a drop of 3.9% over the same period.
The KOSPI, the index of all shares on the exchange, dropped by over 7% on March 3 as the outbreak of hostilities between the US, Israel, and Iran shook global markets.
