A little-noticed filing towards the end of last month said it all. Hong Kong-listed Macao Success, a HK$1bn regional tour operator formerly known as Travel Success, is changing its name again. Call it Success Universe Group, please. Association with the world's biggest gambling hub used to confer a certain glamour. Now the connotations – profligacy, over-stretch – are growing less desirable. Casino revenues across Macao, down 12 per cent in the first half, are heading for their first year-on-year loss. VIP baccarat, responsible for about two-thirds of takings, was down almost a fifth.

Against some tough comparables – a clampdown on visas from mainland China began last June – and a very weak global backdrop, that may not seem disastrous. Annualised, those revenues would still top 2007. But the problem for concessionaires is much larger cost bases to service. City of Dreams, Melco Crown Entertainment's rival to Las Vegas Sands' Venetian on the Cotai strip, just bumped up total table numbers by about 14 per cent. Another 8 per cent should come by the end of the year. Heavily indebted operators, many with earnings-related bank covenants, are already resorting to freebies and rebates to protect market share. City of Dreams' average daily mass-market takings in its first month were just over a third of the Venetian's daily haul in the first quarter.

A sharp second-half recovery in traffic seems unlikely. Of the 7m Chinese who visited Macao on individual visit visas last year, about four-fifths came from export-led Guangdong, one of China's hardest-hit provinces. And with Macanese unemployment contained by the surge in capacity, Beijing is unlikely to relax visa restrictions designed to limit visits from the mainland soon. Meanwhile, at the margin, two new casinos in Singapore and one in Manila won't help. Four of the big six operators should make a loss this year. Who said the house always wins?