For years, millions of Australian tourists visited Hong-Kong and Macau to visit the casinos to have a little gamble. In 2Also, around 2000 Australians live in Macau, probably all dependent on the Casino industry of Macau. Prior to the corona crisis, Macau was the king in the world of casino´s, it was the centre of the casino universe on Earth. Every year there was more money spend in the casinos in Macau compared to Las Vegas.
Will there ever be Australian tourists in the Macau casinos again?
Last update: May, 2024
Even though Macau was the centre of casinos, things don’t look well for Macau. The Chinese gambling capital has fallen due to the zero-covid restriction imposed by the Chinese government. Las Vegas was also hit by the covid pandemic. However, sin city is up and running again and had 1 billion is gross gaming revenues each month since march 2021. At the same time, Macau experiences lockdowns after lockdowns and the Chinese (and the rest of the world) gambling tourists are staying away from the Macau Peninsula in the south of China.
Everyone in Macau is asking themselves: “When will things return to normal again?”. In July 2022, Macau is still under strict covid measures and the tourists are staying away. Prior to the pandemic, most tourists would visit Macau for a couple of days. When they would like to visit Macau, they will have to go in quarantine for 14 days, which is a lot more than tourists would like to spend in Macau.
Moreover, only tourists from Hong Kong, Taiwan of Mainland China are allowed to visit Macau as a tourist. Tourists from other countries are not welcome yet in Macau, Regardless of they vaccination status.
So tourists stay away from the Roulette tables and the pokies, which is a major loss of income for the Grand Lisboa, Galaxy and other casinos in Macau.
These covid measures are killing the casino industry in Macau. However, the casinos in macau have another enemy that is responsible for the downfall of the (ex-)casino capital of the world. The Chinese government from Mainland China have an antipathy towards Macau´s core activity. Gambling is illegal throughout Mainland China and is viewed as a danger to society. This also has to do with the fact that a lot of Chinese millionaires or Billionaires visited Macau to gamble. Through this way a lot of capital left Mainland China. Something which the Chinese government was not to happy about. Since then the government banned such gambling trips for the richest Chinese gamblers. Which was a big blow to the Macau gambling industry.
All these factors caused big problems for the Chinese casinos which are struggling now to survive. Will Macau ever reclaim its throne as gambling capital of the world? We will find out in the future..