To collate its findings, the MGRA conducted mystery shopper surveys of 12 casinos in Macau in 2023: Grand Lisboa, StarWorld, MGM Macau, Sands Macao, Wynn Macau, Grand Lisboa Palace, Galaxy Macau, MGM Cotai, The Venetian Macao, Wynn Palace, City of Dreams and Studio City.

It also covered seven departments in Table Games, Slot Machines, Cashier, Security, Membership, Shuttle Bus and Cloakroom.

The survey focuses on the service quality of gaming staff, with criteria categorized into three main categories: smile, proactivity and tolerance.

According to the MGRA, Macau’s GSI has shown a significant upward trend from a base of 100 in 2013 through the fourth quarter of 2023. All mystery shopper surveys for 2023 were conducted in the second half of the year in two rounds, with a total of 864 data collected, resulting in a GSI of 145, an 11-year high.

The survey revealed that gaming staff scored 171 on the smiling index, 172 on the proactivity index and 103 on the tolerance index, with the smile and proactivity indices breaking the previous year’s record.

The smiling and proactivity indices also increased significantly during the pandemic period (2020 to 2022), although the tolerance index declined.

However, the 2023 survey found that the smile, proactivity and tolerance of each dealer would gradually increase the more customers they face.

When there were between seven and nine customers at the table, the scores for smile, proactivity and tolerance were 1.13, 0.87 and 0.74 respectively, but when there were more than nine customers at the table the scores for smile, proactivity and tolerance increased to 1.24, 0.98 and 0.82 respectively.

These results were a complete reversal of findings from 2017 to 2019, when the survey concluded that a dealer’s smile, proactivity and tolerance declined when more customers were at a table.

Other findings of the 2023 survey were that the quality of air in casinos is strong, with 99% of samples rated as “fresh”, but there was a significant drop in the performance of toilets with only 82% of samples rated as “good”.

GSI is a joint project between the Macau Gaming Research Institute (MGRI) and SGS Hong Kong.