DAMAGE BROUGHT ON BY MACAO’S DOWNTURN TO VEGAS CASINOS. Macao Secretary for Administration and Justice Andrew Cheong Weng Chun on Saturday ordered a closure of all nonessential businesses, including casinos, beginning at midnight on Monday (9 a.m., Sunday PDT) that will last through July 18. The shutdown affects 3 Las Vegas-Based Casino Companies – Macao market leader Las Vegas Sands Corp., with five properties; Wynn, which has three resorts; and MGM Resorts International,which partners on two properties in the Chinese enclave, the only place in the country where gambling is legal. Macao, once the most successful gaming market in the world, already has been battered by restrictive travel policies, low visitation, border closures and gross gaming revenue declines resulting from strict Chinese health and safety policies over the past two years as a result of the pandemic. While Las Vegas gaming numbers have vastly improved since casinos reopened, Macao’s haven’t. Macao, after years of gaming revenue successes that at its peak hit $45 billion in 2013, has seen dramatic revenue declines over the past 2½ years. The special administrative region’s 41 casinos won $10.8 billion (U.S.) in gaming revenue in 2021, an increase of 43.7 percent over the $7.56 billion collected in 2020. But the total was still more than 70 percent below pre-pandemic 2019, when casinos in the region produced $36.6 billion. The Sands Corporation SOLD its Las Vegas Assets, The Venetian, Palazzo and The Venetian Expo, completing the $6.4 billion transaction with Apollo Global Management Inc., earlier this year. The Sands has said it intends to focus efforts on Macao and Singapore and attempt to develop new domestic markets in Florida, Texas and New York. The Sands Corp will be hurt the most by the Macao Impact. The Sands has continued on a plan set in motion by it's former owner long time Casino Mogul, Sheldon Adelson.
