First, it was the corruption crackdown. Now, the Chinese government is reviewing visitation levels to Macao. As Macanese Secretary for Social Affairs & Culture Alexis Tam put
it, “[T]oo many tourists impact residents’ quality of life.” That’s not music to casinos’ ears and gaming stocks reacted predictably. None of the declines were precipitous (Wynn Macau had the worst of it, down 4%), but all Macao gaming operators were negatively impacted.
We probably should have seen this coming, between visa restrictions from the Mainland and President Xi Jinping‘s calls for greater economic diversity in the world’s gambling capital. To give you an idea of how heavy the tourist influx has been, it only took the first six days of the Lunar New Year for Macao to log 443,421 visitors, a 7% increase. (This isn’t strictly a Macanese issue; visitation clamps have also been imposed on Hong Kong.)
A Peking decree that Macao admissions be curbed would hurt some operators — especially Las Vegas Sands and Melco Crown Entertainment — where it hurts the most for them: the mass-market segment. Domestically, MGM Resorts International felt the pain, falling 3% on Wall Street, where analysts faulted it for having “significantly underperformed” the S&P 500.
* “Outperformed” is the word for Isle of Capri Casinos‘ latest quarterly earnings, which beat Wall Street‘s expectations for cash flow. In terms of sheer revenue, Isle of Capri 
Lake Charles ($31 million, riding a wave of prosperity in the market) and Isle of Capri Black Hawk ($29.5 million) were the big dogs. All Isle properties gained revenue in the quarter except for a teensy decline in Natchez. Percentage-wise, Isle’s casinos in Caruthersville, Marquette and Lula led the pack, all up roughly 12.5%. Deutsche Bank had expected Isle to come in with $229 million and the company easily that estimate, grossing $241 million. DB analyst Carlo Santarelli dubbed Isle’s Pompano Park racino “the biggest outperformer, relative to our forecast, as 10% y/y growth created $3.7 [million] of upside to our estimate.”
Cost-cutting continues at the corporate level, down another 16%, which may continue to fuel speculation that Isle is positioning itself as a takeover target. Either way, Isle is to congratulated for running the table in terms of positive results.
