Investors have been folding their Macau bets. It is too early to return to the table.
Shares of casino operators in the world’s largest gambling market have lost more than one-third of their value, or $52 billion, since May. Their valuations, in terms of enterprise value to expected earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, are close to levels last seen during the previous trough, when China’s anticorruption campaign drove high rollers away from the city: Macau’s gambling revenue dropped for 26 consecutive...