Sands China announced a major milestone in Macau recently. According to the announcement, Sands has welcomed 1.1 billion guests to its resorts since opening Sands Macao in 2004. In the former Portuguese colony, Sands China operates The Venetian Macao, The Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Plaza Macao, and Sands Macao. The corporation has invested approximately $16.8 billion in its properties in the city, a lot of money. Is Macau worth it?
Sands entered Macau in 2004. Gaming revenue citywide has grown from $5.1 billion then to $28.3 billion in 2024. Even with COVID, GGR has never been less than $5 billion. The peak revenue was between 2011 and 2013, when GGR rose from $33.4 billion to $45.2 billion. In mid-2014, China initiated a series of measures against corruption that led to a major decline in amount of money being wagered in Macau. GGR dropped just $2 billion in 2014, it fell another $11 billion in 2015, and then to $27.8 billion in 2016. That was the low point until the pandemic.
In 2020, like the rest of the world, gambling in Macau came to an abrupt halt. Gaming revenue dropped to under $10 billion and remained at that level until 2023, when GGR climbed back to $22.8 billion, 38 percent below 2019. In 2024, GGR improved to $28.3 billion, still 16 percent below 2019. The last predictions for 2025 put revenue at $32 billion, closer, but still 13 percent below 2019. Jefferies Research made that estimate, citing events, new properties, player incentives, and new wealth from the stock markets and crypto currencies. There is also talk of “a return of VIP gamblers.” No one is predicting a return to 2014 levels of gaming revenue, but $30 billion is not bad.
In total, Macau has generated approximately $481.5 billion in gaming revenue in the last 21 years. The Sands market share has varied, but it has consistently been between 20 and 25 percent. Ignoring the early years and taking a conservative estimate of Sands’s market share, the gaming company founded by Sheldon Adelson has earned back between $80 billion and $100 billion in gaming revenue from its $16 billion investment. In 2024, Sands China reported annual revenue of $7.0 billion, casino revenue of $5.3 billion, net income of $1.0 billion, and EBITDA of $2.3 billion.
In 2022 after Sheldon Adelson died, Las Vegas Sands (LVS) sold its Las Vegas operations and moved lock, stock, and barrel to Asia. It has a resort in Singapore, Marina Bay Sands (MBS). When LVS built it, Marina Bay was the most expensive casino in the world at nearly $8 billion. MBS has generated nearly $3 billion a year in gaming revenue, with an EBITDA of $2.0 billion and net revenue of $4.2 billion in 2024.
When LVS left Las Vegas, analysts wondered if it was a mistake. In 2022, Macau was still suffering from COVID, with the lowest gaming revenue since 2004, a mere $5.2 billion. In the same year, Las Vegas Strip generated $7.8 billion, an all-time record. It was the only year since Adelson went to China in 2004 that Las Vegas outperformed Macau.
For the Strip, the years between 2004 and 2024 were marred by two major periods of crisis. First, the Great Recession, when revenues dropped significantly, began in 2009 and did not recover to pre-recession levels until 2017. The second was the pandemic, which hit Las Vegas revenue hard for two years. But since 2022, the Strip has been on a record pace. In 2024 Strip GGR hit $7.8 billion, 35 percent over 2019. Total revenue for the Las Vegas Strip from the time Sands Macao opened until 2024 was $126.2 billion or about 26 percent of Macau. And given Sands China’s market share in Macau and its property in Singapore, Asia is clearly more profitable.
More telling than the revenue numbers is the traffic, the one billion visitors to Sands properties in Macau. During that time, Las Vegas had approximately 800 million visitors. Sands has probed and poked around for other opportunities in Japan, Maimi, Dallas, and New York City, but somehow nothing quite measures up to having Mainland China as a feeder market. It is a very high bar.
