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Concerns over junket liquidity, fueled by reports that many small private businesses in China's eastern city of Wenzhou had gone belly up because they couldn't repay maturing bank loans, drove a selloff in casino shares in early October. Shares of SJM Holdings Ltd., Macau's largest operator by revenue, dropped 26% in one trading session. Evidence of an impending crash in Macau has yet to emerge, however, and October ultimately set a monthly high for Macau gambling revenue. SJM's stock ended the year up 2.8%.

The opaque, difficult-to-forecast nature of the VIP business has kept investors jittery and likely will continue to do so this year, analysts said. One of the key focuses will be "whether or not the floor is going to fall out of the VIP market," said Union Gaming analyst Grant Govertsen. He said even casinos don't have a complete picture of the operations at their junket partners.

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