Any player sub-agents wishing to work with Macau junkets will need to have Macau ID, affirmed on Thursday veteran local legislator, Chan Chak Mo, citing talks with government officials. In this context, “ID” would usually mean being a permanent resident of Macau, though Mr Chan noted that still had to be clarified.
The condition had been made a requirement at “some point” earlier this year, said Mr Chan. The city’s gaming regulator didn’t clarify to the legislators when, or by what method, the requirement had been introduced, according to Mr Chan.
Mr Chan heads a Legislative Assembly committee that is scrutinising the draft bill on the city’s gaming law amendment. The Macau government has said the new regulatory framework is required before it proceeds with a fresh public tender for local gaming rights coinciding with the current six permits expiring this year.
The sub-agents – known in local regulatory terminology as junket “collaborators” – are recognised in the draft bill as “natural persons” chosen by junkets to assist in their gaming promotion business.
The draft bill mentions that the junkets have to submit to the casino concessionaires the names of any collaborators with whom the junkets intend to work. The concessionaires must then pass on the names to the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, known also as DICJ.
The government has said casino concessionaires must in future be responsible jointly – alongside the junkets – for the conduct of sub agents.
Historically, collaborators have not been formally licensed in the manner of their partner junkets. A local gaming scolar, Ryan Ho Hong Wai, suggested to GGRAsia that – in terms of how arrangements had operated in the past – there had been a lack of legal clarity regarding the occupational status and tax liability of such gaming collaborators, who mostly had in the past not been Macau ID holders.
The new condition of Macau ID for sub-agents was based on “regulatory” considerations, Mr Chan noted in his Thursday remarks. It was also to ensure collection of an occupational tax levied on individuals in Macau, said the legislator.
“Also, the government wants to protect local employment interests” by allowing only Macau residents as collaborators, said Mr Chan.
GGRAsia asked Mr Chan whether the planned Macau ID rule was linked to local government concerns about the risk of contravening mainland China’s updated criminal code, which outlaws anyone assisting “cross-border” gambling. Mr Chan stated that the Macau government delegates at Thursday’s meeting had not mentioned any such concern.
Specifics on the operation and licensing requirements for junkets, and the regulatory approval criteria for collaborators, would be formed via another piece of legislation, that has been referred to as a new junket law. The Legislative Assembly aimed to have approved the latter piece of legislation by mid-August this year, Mr Chan had said last week.
