The first-half’s year-on-year growth in Macau visitor volume was a key reason the greater number of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) were filed by the casino sector, the city’s Financial Intelligence Office has told GGRAsia.
The office also mentioned the industry’s compliance effort.
The gaming sector filed 2,018 STRs in the January to June period, up 8.7 percent year-on-year, per the office’s latest data. Gaming-sector STRs accounted for 73.3 percent of Macau’s overall 2,753 STRs.
Macau recorded an aggregate of 20.94 million visitor arrivals during the first half of this year, up circa 9 percent year-on-year, according to the city’s Public Security Police in recent commentary.
Accounting for the higher gaming-sector STR numbers, the office explained: “The increase was mainly due to the increase in the number of visitor arrivals during the first half of 2026, and the continuous investment of resources by reporting entities in detecting suspicious transactions.”
“The STRs reported by the gaming sector involved different types of gaming activities, such as chips conversion without or with minimal gaming activities, chips conversion on behalf of third parties, etc,” remarked the office in its written reply to GGRAsia.
The office additionally noted those scenarios were the “same” as had been recorded in other years recently.
