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Macau's April casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) year-on-year decline was narrower than many investment analysts expected. But the gap is more likely due to financial institutions having trouble getting accurate high-end data on the Macau market, rather than to poor market performance last month, several analysts said.

"The final April results were significantly broader compared to GGR trends and consensus estimates, most recently seen on the Street Channel. This is partly the result of reduced monthly GGR trend transparency allowed by the new DICJ chief" David Bain of brokerage Stern Age CRT said in a note on Sunday. He was referring to Paulo Martins Chan, director of the Bureau of Game Inspection and Coordination, an organization also known as the Portuguese acronym DICJ.

Macau's casino GGR fell 9.5% year-on-year in April, compared with a 10%+ decline expected by a number of investment analysts based on unofficial industry returns for the month, official data released on Sunday by the Macau government showed.

"The 9.5% decline in April headlines is likely to translate better than expected recently, but we believe it will likely strengthen investors' views on the lack of credibility of weekly checks," Carlo Santarelli and Danny Baloy of Deutsche Bank Securities.

Grant Govtsen of Union Gaming Securities Asia Ltd said in a note on Sunday that he judged April casino sales to be "generally" seasonal on a monthly basis and linked to a market slowdown that typically appears after the Chinese New Year.

The Union Gaming analyst added on Saturday that what he called a "glitch" of computer technology used in automated customs clearance systems at Macau border checkpoints would not have had a significant negative impact on casino GGRs in April. According to local media reports, some border checkpoints have delayed travelers for hours due to defects.

"Fortunately, this only had a very minor impact on the April 30 GGR because the problem occurred in the evening, the peak time of 'return to China'," Mr Govtsen said.

Brokerage CLSA Ltd said in a report on Friday that it was downgrading Macau's gaming division stock.

"Macao shares have significantly outperformed the market over the past three months, up 35% from the market," analysts Aaron Fischer and Marcus Liu wrote.

"We expect to run out of data points in the coming months before Wynn Palace opens in August. We slightly reduce our GGR estimates, taking into account the larger cannibalization of existing assets," they added.