Sheldon Adelson can call Macao‘s doldrums “cyclical” until he’s blue in the face but there’s no mistaking that the gambling enclave is having serious problems. Actually, that’s a bit of an 
understatement when February revenue falls 49%. VIP play is especially hard to find, down 60% in sheer volume and 56.5% in revenue. Las Vegas Sands took an especially heavy hit, its VIP revenue down 66%. MGM Grand Paradise took a 59% haircut and Wynn Macau was walloped worst of all, its VIP revenue falling 70%. “During a recent visit … to four of the city’s glitziest casinos, VIP rooms were mostly desolate,” reports Reuters.
You can get on a conference call with Wall Street analysts and try to sell this as a minor bump in the road but I don’t advise it, even if half of Macao is better than 100% of every other market in the world and the previous February represented the apogee of gambling revenue in the isthmus.
Galaxy Entertainment and Sociedade de Jogos de Macao outdid the Westerners, garnering 25.5% and 22% of VIP market share respectively. Mass-market play was dominated 
by Sands, with 32%, with only SJM within shouting distance (24%). Mass-play tables stood empty during Chinese New Year. In terms of total market share, Sands and SJM were tied, with 32%, followed by Galaxy (21.5%), Melco Crown Entertainment (14%), and MGM and Wynn (9%). Deutsche Bank‘s Carlo Santarelli predicts improvement in March (although he has increased his projection for the year from -8% to -21%). How could it get any worse? Wait — forget I asked that.
The timing, at least, is merciful. Casino operators are on pace to double Macao’s hotel-room count and could have been caught by this haymaker further down the road, when they could 
least afford it. However, the problem is a lack of gamblers, not of gaming capacity, leading Santarelli to predict “muted” economic response to 2015-16’s wave of megaresorts, targeted at the mass market. Even the mass-market player is being discouraged, whether by smoking bans or tighter rules on using their UnionPay cash-access cards.
Paradoxically, gaming stocks actually rose yesterday, brokers having expected an even worse February outcome. Junket operators, already under siege, may experience more casualties as VIPs either stay away from Macao or spend less when they go there. Union Gaming analyst Grant Govertsen is peddling the interpretation that February’s results are anomalous: “This would seem to be at the high end of the most recent consensus expectations and represented a volatile month that stepped outside of historical trends, which is a likely theme for 2015.” But whenever you expect Macao to bounce back, it dips lower. The winner in this scenario may be Chinese President Xi Jinping, who’s been warning the Macanese economy to diversify and can use these numbers are vindication of his message.
* Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority wasted little time in finding a replacement for CEO Mitchell Etess. Promoting from within, it settled upon Mohegan Sun CEO Robert Soper, who will take the top job on March 30. Joining the conga line were new Mohegan Sun President Ray Pineault and new COO Thomas Burke. According to Etess, Soper’s experience both at the main casino and Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs made him the man for the top job.
* Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R) will be holding a dog-and-pony show for his Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) on Thursday. The bill would scotch online gambling and lotteries alike. Pejoratively, the hearing is being held by the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security & Investigations. Yeah, they’re a real bunch of wild-eyed jihadists, those casino operators. It looks like the fix is in at the hearing, as no pro-Internet-gambling speakers are known to be on the witness list. It’s a show trial in the best Stalinist tradition.
