Macao becomes more than a gambling destination. Casinos win anyway

If you blindfolded an American tourist and plopped them on the Cotai Strip in Macao, they might take one look at the Venetian hotel and the replica Eiffel Tower and assume they were in Las Vegas.

Like Las Vegas, Macao — a special administrative region of China — is transforming itself with fresh entertainment, waterparks, spas, fine dining and sports.

This week Las Vegas Sands is hosting two NBA games in Macao, a return for the basketball league after a six-year absence from China. The company’s president and chief operating officer, Patrick Dumont, owns the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and was pivotal in engineering the league’s return.

“I think it’s great for Macao, because it highlights really how great an entertainment city Macao truly is,” Dumont told CNBC in an interview. He highlighted the tens of billions of dollars invested to create a world-class destination for hospitality.

“We’ve been operating here for 21 years, and we’ve invested $17 billion, so the amount of entertainment capacity here is really tremendous,” Dumont said. “For us, the NBA just highlights that.”

The NBA games — between the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns, on Friday and Sunday — will be played at the Venetia Arena in Macao. Fans packed the same arena last month for an immersive K-pop concert by the group Twice.

Big-name events draw the biggest spenders at the gaming tables, according to analysts at Citigroup, which last month raised its projection for 2025 gross gaming revenue in Macao to $33.3 billion. Those projections represent growth of 10% year over year, an acceleration in gaming revenue gains.

For comparison, the state of Nevada booked a record $15.6 billion in gaming revenue in 2024, according to the American Gaming Association, citing Nevada Gaming Control Board.

But the government of Macao is intent on diversifying its economy and moving beyond its reputation as the gambling capital of the world.

When the six primary concessionaires, the companies that run licensed casino resorts in Macao, applied in 2022 to have those concessions renewed, the government extracted from them a commitment to invest nearly $15 billion over 10 years, with about 90% dedicated to non-gaming amenities.

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Wynn Resorts CEO Craig Billings said in an email to CNBC that the company’s concession-related investments are “focused on entertainment and, as we have seen in many markets including Macau, entertainment is a clear driver of visitation.  And that visitation is from both gaming customers and non-gaming customers.”

At Wynn Palace in Cotai, customers might snap selfies in front of an incredible collection of F1 race cars, ride a gondola over a Bellagio-esque fountain show, or dine at SW Steakhouse while catching a different theatrical show every 30 minutes. Wynn’s investment in food-court style dining belies the renowned cuisine represented from across China and around the world.

Gaming executives across multiple companies say the demographics of visitors have changed since borders reopened after the pandemic. Younger gamblers, high-rollers and their spouses or children are enjoying increasingly inventive and diverse amusements.

MGM Macau’s Tria spa, the result of a $7 million investment, surprises guests with a room devoted to real snowfall. And its immersive experience pool puts the guest in the middle of a virtual ocean as a violent thunderstorm approaches, with massive rain shower heads overhead sending water cascading down.

MGM China President Kenneth Feng proudly showed off top-tier suites built to reward the best and most valuable players. He told CNBC his entire team is committed to offering modern uplifting design and superb service for an evolving Chinese visitor.

“These people are young and sophisticated, and many of them come to Macao so often,” Feng said. “We need to refresh our offerings so they are excited to come to Macao and happy to visit our properties.”

This week, families with children (and grandparents and “helpers” as the nannies are often called here) skipped through Melco’s Studio City, climbing atop Toy Story characters, racing toward the indoor/outdoor waterpark, and boarding the only figure-8 Ferris wheel in the world.

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At Melco’s sister resort down the strip, City of Dreams, patrons young and old filled the theater for a destination show, “House of Dancing Water.”

At every resort, the restaurants, shops, pools and clubs connect with corridors outside casino floors that are carefully cloistered behind screens to block the gaming tables and slot machines from view.

Visitation increased nearly 20% in the first half of 2025 to 19.2 million people, according to official government statistics. Golden Week alone, an eight-day holiday period ending October 8, was expected to bring in an estimated 1.2 million visitors.

And despite the strides in general entertainment, more visitors to Macao still means more gambling.

A JPMorgan analyst note published earlier this week said this year’s Golden Week was likely to be Macao’s best in five years, with the casinos projected to bring in $686 million in gaming revenue in just the first five days of the holiday.

CNBC was not allowed to photograph or record the casino floor, as its prohibited by law in Macao. The special administrative region takes great pains to avoid provoking the Chinese government, which staunchly opposes any promotion of gambling on the mainland.

But it is gambling that fuels the profits and the tax revenue. Macao’s government collected $5.6 billion in gaming taxes in the first half of 2025, about 1% growth over 2024. The data from the first half of 2025 shows non-gaming spending per capita dropped by nearly 13%.

Las Vegas, too, has invested billions of dollars in entertainment, fine dining, spas, shopping and sports. Roughly two-thirds of revenue now comes from non-gaming sources, according to the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

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Of course, that’s revenue; not profits. All those arenas, spas, pools and fancy theaters come with major construction and maintenance costs. And it takes a lot of high-priced concert tickets to pay off the investment.

Alan Woinski, publisher of The Gaming Industry Daily Report, blamed the slump in Las Vegas on declining tourist demand.

“It is pretty easy to understand that leisure is where the LV Strip is seeing business plummet. Could we get back the billions wasted on non-gaming amenities to attract the non-gambling leisure customer?” Woinski wrote on Wednesday.

Woinski says Macao is a different story: Here, the special events are driving the gambling.

“This month will be a good test because usually after a Golden Week, the rest of the month is weak,” Woinski told CNBC.

He said key metrics to watch are gross gaming revenue and whether the packed special events calendar for the rest of October helps deliver gaming revenue that finally returns to pre-pandemic levels.

— CNBC’s Jessica Golden contributed to this report.