Imperial Pacific Continues Strong Performance In Saipan

Macau once dominated the global gambling industry and generated five times the revenue as Las Vegas.

However the gambling capital of the world has lost its sheen during the last 24 months due to an anti-corruption crackdown launched by Beijing and as a result a number of other locations have profited from Macau’s casino industry collapse.

One of those locations is the Island of Saipan which is within Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and forms a part of United States’ Pacific Ocean territory. Based on a recent regulatory filing, Hong Kong based Imperial Pacific International Holdings Ltd which operates a casino in Saipan has registered rolling chip volume of nearly US$1.66 billion in June.

太平洋娛樂 Best Sunshine Saipan

Imperial Pacific decided to open a temporary casino the Best Sunshine International in November which has 16 VIP gaming tables and around 30 mass tables. In the first quarter of 2016, the average VIP table game rolling chip turnover per month for the casino was US$2.0 billion, far exceeding initial expectations.

June’s gross gaming revenue for Macau casinos declined by 8.5 percent on a year-on- year basis according to data released by Macau’s gaming regulator. It was the lowest monthly revenue since September 2010.

In a statement, Grant Govertsen analyst Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd said,

While we think most of the incremental VIP softness [in Macau] can be lumped into a bucket that includes factors like anti-corruption and economic weakness, it is getting harder to ignore the likely impact of jurisdictions like Saipan.

Data released for Macau market does not include rolling chip volume in the casinos. It typically provides the split between VIP and mass market segments in the Casino’s Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) which is another measure to track industry performance. This is reported after the end of the quarter.

According to Govertsen, few basis points VIP roll in Macau casinos translate into millions of U.S. dollars of casino GGR. He stated that rolling chip volume of around US$2.5 billion per month gets converted in GGR of almost US$71 million. Govertsen observed that play shifted to other casino locations outside of Macau and this was one of the main reasons for Macau’s poor showing. If the play had gone to Macau, its GGR in June would have seen a decline of just 5.2 percent or in other words been better by 330 basis points.

The slow revival in Macau’s’ VIP segment has been attributed by many experts to other regions such as Philippines having been benefited by proxy betting which were carried out by Chinese high rollers through phones.