The number of licensed gaming promoters – also known as ‘junkets’ – to be permitted in the Macau casino market during 2025 is to be capped at 50, according to information from the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ).
That will leave the permitted maximum unchanged from the current year. In practice, presently under half the permitted quota is actually taken up by entities wishing to act as gaming promoters. As of June 11 – the latest update available online from the regulator – Macau had 22 licensed junkets.
Macau’s gaming law framework – including a statute specifically applicable to junkets – also requires a cap on the number of junkets that each of the city’s six casino operators can work with. That cap varies from operator to operator, at the discretion of the city’s Secretary for Economy and Finance.
The latest information shows that for 2025, such caps on junket-partner numbers applied to operators will remain the same as for 2024. For this year and next, Sands China Ltd and SJM Holdings Ltd have the largest allowance: 12 junkets each.
MGM China Holdings Ltd and Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd each have a cap of eight junkets for this year and next. Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd and Wynn Macau Ltd have each a cap of five junket partners for this year and for 2025.
The Macau junkets themselves are only allowed to partner with a single gaming concessionaire. The junket operators are allowed to earn commission – capped at 1.25 percent on rolling chip turnover – for their gaming promotion service, but are banned from sharing casino revenue in “any form” with their casino-concessionaire partner.
A recent update to Macau’s legal framework for gaming – due to come into effect from August 1 – stipulates that casino concessionaires will be the only entities permitted to provide gambling credit to patrons in the Macau market.
Junkets will not themselves be allowed to issue credit to any gamblers. They will only be able to request a partnering casino concessionaire to extend gaming credit to players they introduce to the operator. Such an arrangement would require a notarised contract approved by the Secretary for Economy and Finance.
The gaming bureau has recently updated information on the number of so-called “collaborators” permitted in the city’s casino market for 2025. These are people – commonly referred to as “sub-agents” – with a network of contacts, that are permitted to collaborate with licensed junkets to introduce high-value players to casinos.
The 2025 cap on such go-betweens is 250, the same as for this year. As of April 24 this year, only seven collaborators held authorisation to work in the local market, according to publicly-available information from the regulator.
