Revenues from casinos returned to fall in the third quarter this year to 26.2 billion patacas, Portuguese News Agency reported yesterday.
Citing an “official source,” Lusa said operators have reacted to the slowdown by cutting back on the number of gaming tables.
For the second consecutive quarter, gaming revenues decreased. Between July and September, the safe deposit boxes in casinos collected three billion patacas less than between April and June and less four billion patacas than in the first three months of the year.
Nevertheless, the total gaming revenue by the end of last month reached 85.5 billion patacas, 1.6 billion patacas more than in the whole of 2007.
As usual, the tables of VIP baccarat represent the majority of casinos' revenues at 68.7 per cent, while the other “normal” baccarat tables only accounted for 17.8 per cent of the revenue.
In addition, the casinos still dominate the gaming sector, with revenues of 84.7 billion patacas. The stakes in racing of greyhounds, horses, lotteries and betting football or basketball are down to a very small slice of only 774 million patacas.
Meanwhile, according to the report, the number of tables is dropping from 13,552 at the end of the first quarter to 12,835 at the end of last month.
Gaming operators are also trying to reduce costs by cutting back on gaming tables since 35 per cent of gaming revenues go towards direct taxes, and four per cent on indirect taxes.
Operators also pay a license fee for each gaming table and slot machine.