Macau casinos highest monthly amount ever
Casinos in the southern Chinese resort of Macau brought in a record 1.41 billion US dollars in August, the highest monthly amount ever, according to official data released Thursday. The record takings were 17 per cent higher than in the same month last year and triple the monthly average of 470 million US dollars raked in by casinos on the Las Vegas Strip over the past year. Despite the economic downturn in previous quarters, last month’s significant growth of revenues generated by the city’s gaming sector, the pillar of local economy, still showed that Macau’s gaming market is yet to be saturated since gaming operators continued to unveil new casinos in the island this year, which further expanded the market, said Zeng Zhonglu, an economic professor at the Macao Polytechnic Institute. Gaming revenues are expected to record an even stronger year-on-year growth rate starting in September because of the slump in the market in the same period a year ago, analysts said. 
Many analysts have begun to mark the raise in casino profits a sign that the economy is beginning to stabilize and turn around. However, the Macau government has predicted a 10 percent drop in gross gaming revenues for the whole year.