Sands China CEO Steve Jacobs seems to have enough time on his hands to give interviews to media, and yesterday he gave Reuters a conservative forecast for gaming revenue growth in the second half. Saying that the DICJ’s comments earlier this month were fairly accurate in predicting 30% growth for 2010, Jacobs also said the company was having no problems hiring workers for Lot 5+6 due to recently implemented regulations on imported workers.

Analysis: Steve Jacobs is one heckuva manager, with a tight fist and laser-like focus on his company’s numbers. But he hasn’t been here long enough yet to properly understand the seasonality of Macau gaming revenues. So he’s probably looking at his own numbers from the DICJ (distributed to every operator) and thinking that the softness we have seen since the Dragon Boat festival is symptomatic of a decline that will continue to be felt the rest of the year. We called this softness before as a natural result of exams plus holiday plans being held up ahead of summer. We think July will be strong again, and August stronger. If that alone happens – never mind the Sept-Dec annual surge – then 30% YOY growth forecasts will already be made redundant. As for the labor issue, well, what else could he say when asked such a question? We will believe it when we see thousands rather than dozens of workers clambering around that site.

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