One goal of the Macau junket sector this year should be to persuade the city’s casino concessionaires to be flexible about where – within a concessionaire’s gaming operation – junket-introduced players can gamble. The focus should be on making the whole sector grow, rather than being caught up by the demarcations of ‘VIP’ and ‘mass’.
That is according to veteran junket promoter U Io Hung. He heads the Macau Gaming Promoter Professionals Association.
Mr U said that – while the manner in which gaming promoters can be rewarded for introducing players to Macau casinos, i.e., via commission – is set out in the city’s updated gaming legal framework, there is nothing to mandate such players should only be VIP level, or just engage in rolling chip commission gambling.
He told GGRAsia: “No part of Macau’s [prevailing] gaming law restricts us to working in a particular zone within the casinos.
“Our role is that we should bring our partner casino concessionaires patrons, but they are not necessarily only the high-end ones,” suggested Mr U.
Already recently at Cotai properties Galaxy Macau, run by Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd; and City of Dreams, run by Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd, junkets have been allowed to introduce players to the house-managed VIP gaming areas, Mr U told GGRAsia.
He further remarked: “We should be permitted to take our patrons to more areas, covering the high-limit zones, or even the mass areas, wherever our patrons desire to go… as long as we are bringing in fresh sources of patrons that can complement the existing patron-base of the casino concessionaires.”
The veteran junket boss also told GGRAsia that his sector plans to lobby, in March, Macau’s Chief Executive, Sam Hou Fai, for relief on the burden of the 5-percent withholding levy payable by junkets on commissions casinos provide to junkets. Such a proposal had been put forward by Mr U’s association in 2023, but did not result in any change of position from the Macau government.
Under a previous regulatory system that had been in place until December 31, 2022, junkets had been able to benefit from a legal provision allowing them either a total or partial exemption from taxation either on junket commissions or remunerations paid in kind to junkets, such as transportation, accommodation, food and drink, and entertainment.
That previous system had led junkets to be subject in effect to a lower net tax rate than they would otherwise have faced. But following the Macau government’s new regulatory stance with effect from the start of 2023, that had no longer been possible.
