Casino spending offers one of the more trustable Chinese real-time economic indicators. Visitor numbers from Hong Kong and the mainland to Macau, the world’s largest gambling hub, give a sense of consumer confidence. Chinese GDP tracks fairly well against gross gaming revenue from slot-machine punters, while trends in property markets and luxury goods correlate reasonably with how much high-rollers on junkets are wagering.

It’s not a clean indicator, however. The effects of Covid lockdowns have held back visitor rates more than in Singapore and Las Vegas, while anti-corruption measures introduced in 2014 made casinos more reliant on public holidays, the most important of which is National Day Golden Week.

This year’s Golden Week is an even bigger deal than usual, having begun five days after China launched its bazooka stimulus package. And, according to the early readings, Macau gambling revenues have been blowing the roof off.