Hong Kong  - Gambling revenue in Macau's casinos has fallen by 30 per cent in January compared to the same month last year as punters stay away, according to figures released Friday.

Spending in the casinos over the Chinese New Year was down dramatically with gamblers spending a little more than half over the three-day holiday what they spent last year in a single day.

Official statisticians in the former Portuguese colony believe casinos took 169 million patacas (21.4 million US dollars) over the holiday compared to 300 million patacas a day in last year's holiday.

The dramatic fall in casino revenue has seen takings drop for four months out of the past five, partly because of the global economic slump and partly because of travel restrictions on visitors from elsewhere in China.

Beijing last year imposed strict limits on the number of visits Chinese people can make to the southern territory in an apparent attempt to stop a flood of money leaving China for US-run casinos.

More than 10,000 construction workers were laid off at the end of last year as work on new casinos and hotels in the territory of 500,000 people was halted because of the slowdown in trade.

In 2007, gambling revenues in Macau exceeded those of the Las Vegas Strip as big-money gamblers from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong flooded to Macau's glitzy new casinos.

Las Vegas casinos were allowed into Macau from 2003 in an effort to boost tourism and update Macau's seedy image as a haunt for gangsters, loan sharks and prostitutes.

Macau, which maintains border controls with China and has an independent economic and judicial system, reverted to Chinese rule in 1999 after four and a half centuries as a Portuguese colony. (dpa)