Moody's predicts that Asia will continue to see a recovery in gaming.

 

According to Moody's Investors Service Inc's Monday memo, the global gaming market will continue its recovery "as Asia relaxes restrictions."

Moody's stated that it expects earnings before interest tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), in the gaming sector to jump between 30 percent and 35 percent over the next 12-18 months. However, such growth will "still fall below (and anomalous), bounce-back in 2021, and continue to lag in pre-pandemic 2019 level in 2022."

The ratings agency said that they expect the sector to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023, as travel normalises across Asia, and on the backs of incremental growth in the United States (especially Las Vegas) and parts of Europe.

Many Asian casinos have either relaxed travel restrictions or made plans to do so in near future.

, the home of a casino duopoly in Singapore, has lifted all Covid-19 testing requirements for fully-vaccinated tourists from Tuesday (April 26). People can now travel to Singapore without the need for quarantine or a Covid-19 test.

In March, South Korea, host to several casino resorts, waived a seven-day quarantine-on-arrival for inbound travellers that are fully-vaccinated - via three jabs - against Covid-19.

According to media reports, Khairy Jamaluddin, Malaysia's health minister, stated Monday that his government would announce next week further relaxations of Covid-19 countermeasures in Malaysia.

China has adopted a "dynamic zero-Covid approach" and all foreigners are prohibited from entering its country. Since the pandemic's onset in early 2020, Macau has kept its borders open to all non-resident citizens.

Mainland China is the only country that has a travel bubble that is almost free from quarantine, along with Macau.

Moody's reported Monday that it expects the U.S. market's growth to slow, but added that there will be "still incremental growth" as business travel returns to life.

According to the institution, "The U.S. has already largely recovered after sharp losses in mid 2020 with U.S. gaming recovering first on strong domestic travel as consumers have stayed close to home."

It added that "Las Vegas has also largely returned to pre-pandemic levels at the moment, even without benefit from a business travel revival." "As business travel returns, we see potential for incremental growth at conference centres like Las Vegas."

Moody's suggested that Europe's gaming market would also benefit from the ease in travel restrictions.

It stated that "In Europe we expect some brick-and-mortar gaming operations to improve along side travel and fewer restrictions while online -which did exceptionally well over 2021 in Europe as people hunkered down at home -will remain solid."