MACAU Special Administrative Region government's income from direct gaming taxes for the first seven months of this year rose 51.4 percent year on year to 24.24 billion patacas (US$3.03 billion), figures released yesterday by the SAR's Finance Service Bureau show.
The gaming taxes collected in the first seven months of this year have exceeded those for the whole of 2006, which stood at 19.78 billion patacas, and were close to last year's 29.34 billion patacas. Under local laws, Macau's 30 casinos pay 35 percent of their gross revenues as direct tax to the government