Macau Gaming Weekly:A good start to May

　　May Golden Week: Despite the first eight days covering a two day Labour Day holiday(30 Apr – 2 May), the period yielded MOP6.1bn in Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR). Thisimplies an average GGR of MOP762m/day month-to-date, versus MOP578m/day in April,MOP843m/day during the 2016 Chinese New Year period and MOP827m/day in October2015 Golden Week. Factoring normalization in the run rate post the holiday period, weexpect the full month to finish between MOP17.5-19bn, or -7% to -14% y-o-y. This impliesan average run rate of MOP500-560m/day for the rest of the month.

　　Ban on phone betting and new Union Pay regulations: The Macau governmentannounced a ban on proxy betting on Friday and Hong Kong. HKEJ reported yesterdaythat the Macau Monetary Authority will be replacing selected Union Pay machines whichrequire customers to input customer ID details before a transaction can be processed. Wethink the impact will be quite contained for both events. For the phone betting ban,enforcement could be difficult and more importantly, VIP revenue is now below 50% oftotal revenue and given its low margin nature, EBITDA impact will be even more limited.As for new Union Pay regulations, an ID check has always been part of the procedureand not all machines will be replaced. Therefore, we think the concerns are overplayed.