Macau Revenues Up 4.4% in February

Asian betting destination Macau saw its fortunes turn in February, hitting MOP 25.36 billion in gaming revenues during the month, up 4.4% from the year prior.

The increase comes on the back of the Chinese New holiday, which sees a bunch of tourists coming in from mainland China. Macau brought in more than a million visitors over the holiday, which is up 26.6% from the year prior. This surge in visitors comes as there's a new bridge that opened last fall.

The jump in revenues comes a month after the revenue growth streak of 29 months was broken, as revenues were down 5% in January. Because of the down month, year to date numbers are down 0.5% in terms of Gross Gaming Revenues. It's thought that a decline in the number of lucrative VIP players is largely behind the bad January, with an analyst noting: "VIP likely dipped into negative territory on a market-wide basis, although certainly mixed at the operator level. On a GGR/day basis, February was MOP906 million … or the highest level since the fall of 2014."