Macau casinos’ VIP and mass market gambling revenue fell at a slower rate in the first quarter of 2016, but analysts believe the market’s fundamentals are “merely less bad” rather than getting better.

On Friday, Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) released figures covering the first three months of 2016, which showed overall casino gaming revenue of MOP 56.2b (US $7b), down 13.3% from the same period last year.

The troubled VIP gaming market continued to slide, falling 19.3% year-on-year to MOP 30.4b, which sounds terrible until you realize that Q1 2015’s VIP decline was down over 42% from Q1 2014.

Mass market gaming revenue totaled MOP 25.8b, a decline of 4.8% from the same period last year, which also represents an improvement given the 27% year-on-year decline reported in Q1 2015.