Macao's casino receipts hit record high in October

MACAO, Nov. 4 (Xinhua) -- Boosted by seasonal factors, namely the mainland's "Golden Week" holidays in the first week of October, Macao's casino sector logged over 12 billion patacas (1.51 billion U.S. dollars) in gross receipts last month, the highest monthly amount on record, the Macao Post Daily reported Wednesday.

Compared with the same month last year, last month's casino gross receipts of Macao rose some 40 percent, beating the previous record of 11.27 billion patacas (1.42 billion U.S. dollars), which the sector logged in August.

Citing an official source, the Macao Post Daily reported that the casino industry logged gross receipts of about 95 billion patacas (12 billion U.S. dollars) in the first 10 months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 3.5 percent.

Public relations officials of four of Macao's six casino companies declined to release their respective October gross revenue figures. While some said the figures were confidential, others said they were still calculating the figures.

Meanwhile, the local bureau of the Portuguese news agency Lusa quoted gaming sector sources as saying that this year's casino gross receipts were expected to reach a record 115 billion patacas (14.5 billion U.S. dollars), an increase of nearly 6 percent on last year's gross receipts.