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Dual-listed casino operator Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. Friday applied to delist from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange just three years after listing its shares in the Chinese financial hub, citing limited fundraising opportunities and onerous compliance obligations and costs.

The gambling company, which operates casinos in Macau and a newly opened property in the Philippine capital of Manila, said it would maintain its primary listing of American Depositary Shares on the Nasdaq, where Melco Crown has been listed since December 2006.

The news comes after a disastrous year for casino stocks caused by a sharp downturn in Macau, the world’s largest gambling market, as China’s corruption crackdown scared off highrollers. Shares of Macau’s six licensed casino operators fell an average 40% in 2014 as Macau experienced its first recorded annual decline in gambling revenue—a 2.6% drop after a decade of booming growth.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. unit Sands China Ltd. and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd. —the only two casino stocks that are part of Hong Kong’s blue-chip Hang Seng Index—were two of the three worst-performing stocks on the index last year, weighing down the entire market. Both listed Melco Crown entities fell about 35% in 2014.

By contrast, in 2013, when Macau gambling revenue rose 19%, the share prices of Nasdaq-listed Melco Crown, as well as Hong Kong-listed MGM China Holdings Ltd. and Galaxy, all more than doubled.

Melco Crown—which has as its co-chairmen Lawrence Ho, son of Macau gambling mogul Stanley Ho , and James Packer , son of the late Australian casino-and-media magnate Kerry Packer—said in a statement to the exchange late Friday that it wanted to leave the market because “appropriate opportunities to raise additional equity in Hong Kong have not arisen, and the volume of trading in the shares on the stock exchange remains very limited.”

It added that “maintaining the listing of the shares on the stock exchange requires additional ongoing regulatory compliance obligations and such requirements involve significant additional costs and administrative burden.” A spokeswoman for Melco Crown declined to comment beyond the announcement.

CLSA analyst Aaron Fischer told The Wall Street Journal that the delisting plan made business sense. “I don’t think there is any point having an extra listing if that stock doesn’t trade due to limited investor demand, and therefore it’s not worth incurring the costs of the listing,” he said, adding that he didn’t believe there were any other reasons behind the company’s decision to leave the Hong Kong market.

According to data on exchange operator Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. ’s website, the average daily trading volume of the Hong Kong-listed Melco Crown for the past three months was 34,000. On Nasdaq, Melco Crown’s average daily trading volume over the past 50 days was 3.88 million, according to the U.S. exchange’s website.

A spokeswoman for HKEx said that while she wouldn't comment on individual companies’ business decisions, “we trust our market is attractive to issuers due to its liquidity and competitive in terms of compliance cost.” She said that the total funds raised from new issues and issues in Hong Kong’s secondary market reached $935.8 billion Hong Kong dollars (US$120.6 billion) in 2014, a record high. In 2014, Hong Kong also set a record with 96 main board listings, she said.

Melco Crown said in its statement that shareholders would have two options after the proposed delisting: continuing to hold the delisted shares or holding their interest in the form of the Nasdaq-listed ADS. The company said the timing of the proposed listing, which would require the approval of shareholders and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, was unclear.