Macao's casino racked in 500 million patacas (US$62 million) in gross revenue in the first three days of the National Day holiday which began on Oct. 1.
Tuesday's Macao Daily News reported that the holiday market has boosted the gaming sector. The accumulated gross revenues and taxes yielded by the gaming sector in the first nine months this year have surpassed the total amounts of last year.
For the whole of last year, the government collected 10.17 billion patacas (US$1.27 billion) in gaming taxes.
The newspapers source said that the gaming revenue in September amounted to 3 billion patacas (US$375 million), which were some 1 billion patacas (US$125 million) lower than the monthly income in the previous two months.
The newspaper said that the Macao Gaming Co. Ltd. owned by tycoon Stanley Ho held 67 percent of the market share in September, during which Macao's first American casino the Las Vegas Sands Macao opened in May grasped 13.5 percent, and the Hong Kong-invested Galaxy Waldo inaugurated in July obtained 19.5 percent.
Industry insiders forecast that based on the current situation, the gaming sector would contribute 13 billion patacas (US$1.2 billion) to the government's tax coffer this year.
(Xinhua News Agency October 6, 2004)
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