Macau April 2026 GGR up 5.5% YoY to MOP$19.9 billion

Macau gross gaming revenue (GGR) reached MOP$19.9 billion (about US$2.47 billion) in April 2026, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) reported, marking a 5.5% increase versus April 2025 and a 12.0% decline versus March 2026’s MOP$22.61 billion (US$2.80 billion). The softer month-on-month print reflects April’s traditional off-peak position in the Macau tourism calendar — the only material mainland-China holiday in the month was the three-day Qingming Festival, with Easter falling outside the Chinese holiday calendar. Year-to-date, GGR sits at MOP$85.8 billion (US$10.6 billion), up 12.1% on the same four-month window last year, putting the sector roughly on pace with the Macau government’s MOP$236 billion full-year forecast.

What’s behind the numbers?

The May 2026 print will be the more important data point, because it is the first month where the year-on-year base from 2025 includes the early-year tourism normalisation that lifted the comparable. April’s 5.5% YoY undershot Seaport senior analyst Vitaly Umansky’s 12% forecast for the month, while CBRE Equity Research has continued to hold a full-year 8.3% YoY growth view — 2.0 percentage points above current consensus. The split between the official April number and the higher analyst expectations reflects the same caution baked into the wider US gaming-operator commentary visible in our coverage of how BetMGM trimmed its 2026 revenue outlook as prediction markets bit: the market is willing to fund Macau-exposed names, but the demand side has to keep delivering.

Why this matters for the operators

Six concessionaires share the Macau market — Sands China, Wynn Macau, MGM China, Galaxy Entertainment, SJM Holdings, and Melco Resorts — and their relative market-share moves are the second-order story. In Q1 2026, Melco posted the strongest top-line performance, while Sands China and Wynn Macau gained quarter-on-quarter share. SJM Holdings, MGM China and Galaxy saw declines over the same quarter. EBITDA flow-through has continued to expand: Sands China’s Q1 property EBITDA after licence fees rose 30% to roughly $332 million, helped by favourable hold in both VIP and mass segments. Mass baccarat GGR across the first three months of 2026 was up 6.5% versus the prior-year period — the segment that has carried the post-pandemic recovery.

What happens next?

Three observable markers will shape the rest of the 2026 read. First, the May DICJ print, due in early June: an inline-or-better number against Umansky’s 8.2% YoY forecast supports the CBRE above-consensus view; a miss confirms the deceleration scenario several Wall Street desks have flagged. Second, the Q2 operator earnings cycle: any acceleration in mass-segment GGR growth would lift the EBITDA outlook for Sands, Wynn, and Galaxy. Third, the broader US gaming consolidation backdrop — the same structural M&A pressure visible in the Fertitta-led $7 billion Caesars takeover bid backed by bank financing — sets the cost-of-capital baseline against which Macau-exposed names trade. Whether Macau’s MOP$236 billion full-year target holds will depend less on hold luck and more on whether Golden Week and the summer-season pulses produce the high-single-digit YoY growth the analyst consensus is now banking on. For broader market context, the global gambling demand picture sketched in our reporting on how unregulated online gambling hit $5.9 trillion in 2025 remains the off-network counter-pressure for every regulated jurisdiction Macau included.

FAQ

Q: How much did Macau make in April 2026?
A: MOP$19.9 billion (US$2.47 billion) in gross gaming revenue, up 5.5% year-on-year and down 12.0% month-on-month from March’s MOP$22.61 billion.

Q: How does that compare to 2025?
A: For the first four months of 2026 combined, GGR is up 12.1% year-on-year at MOP$85.8 billion. Gaming tax revenue to the Macau government over that period reached roughly US$4.3 billion.

Q: What is the 2026 full-year forecast?
A: The Macau government’s official budget forecast is MOP$236 billion in 2026 GGR. CBRE projects 8.3% YoY growth, two percentage points above current consensus.

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