Macao's pillar gaming industry is seeing a new boom as the gaming receipts witnessed a 46.1-percent rise year-on-year in the first half of the year.

Statistics issued by the government-run Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau showed Wednesday that the gross gaming and betting receipts, comprising casino games, horse and greyhound races and a string of lotteries, stood at 37.97 billion patacas (4.75 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of June.

Casino business alone accounted for over 98 percent of the industry's gross receipts between January and June, the figures showed.

The figures released reaffirmed the trend of rising gaming and falling betting gross receipts.

All types of betting business, including greyhound, horse races, soccer and basketball bets, and four types of lottery, witnessed a year-on-year decrease of 34.1 percent in the second quarter, standing at 1.84 billion patacas (230 million dollars).

The total betting amount in the first half of this year amounted to 3.57 billion patacas (446 million dollars), a drop of 32.4 percent from the same period of 2006.

In the casino sector, slot machines, or the hungry tigers, saw a remarkable year-on-year rise of 76.3 percent in the gross receipts in the first six months.

Meanwhile, the share of slot machines in the local gaming market, in terms of gross receipts, rose from 3.4 percent in the first half of 2006 to 4.1 percent in the first six months of this year.

Baccarat, the hot card game, generated 85 percent of the gaming industry's total gross receipts in the first half.

Most of the 18 games of luck offered by Macao's 26 casinos saw two-digit year-on-year growth in the first half, as Roulette, the traditional European game of luck, stood at the top with a 66-percent rate.

In the first half, the number of gaming tables rocketed to 3,102, seeing a year-on-year rise of 58.8 percent.

The number of slot machines in the first half also saw a huge year-on-year increase of 81.7 percent, standing at 8,234.

Macao's 26 casinos are currently run by four operators, with local czar Stanley Ho's Macao Gaming Company controlling 19, Hong Kong-based Galaxy group five, Las Vegas-based Venetian and Wynn one for each.

The local gaming and betting industry generated record gross receipts of 55.88 billion patacas (6.985 billion dollars) in 2006, branding the city with a population of merely 500,000 the world's leading gambling city.