Visitation to Macau for Golden Week, the weeklong celebration of the anniversary of China’s foundation, was lower than expected. September 28 and 29 were nowhere near what had been anticipated compared to last year and many expected the declines to translate into poorer performance. Fortunately, however, gross gaming revenue (GGR) didn’t suffer as they had thought.

Across the first seven days of this month, the average daily average (ADR) for casinos in Macau rose to $162 million, according to JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd. The firm published a Macau note yesterday, adding, “This implies that ADR grew well over 15 percent year-on-year, and that ‘total GGR’ during Golden Week grew high-single-digit year-on-year.”

The note’s authors, analysts Sean Zhuang and DS Kim, added that the total GGR comparison was not a true comparison between last year and this one. The period covered eight days last year, but only seven in 2018.

Nevertheless, the results are significantly. The analysts explained, “This is better than our expectations of approximately 5 percent growth, and likely ahead of the market’s.”