GGRAsia – Casino inspector shortage even for 2024 says Macau govt

Casino inspector shortage even for 2024 says Macau govt

Dec 11, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck

Macau’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, will see certain job roles filled during 2024, but the expected fresh recruitment will not cover all the department’s labour needs – in particular for inspection work within the city’s casinos.

That is according to Macau government commentary on the city’s budget plan for 2024. The remarks were part of what is known as the “concluding opinion” on the budget, with the overall commentary signed off recently by a committee of the city’s Legislative Assembly.

The budget plan for 2024 is yet to go through a final reading via a plenary session of the assembly. It proposes assigning for the year MOP351.82 million (US$43.74 million) to the casino regulator, also known in its Portuguese-language acronym as DICJ. Costs to be covered by the amount include “new trainee staff” for 2024, and to cover promotion of certain incumbent staff, the budget plan shows.

The gaming bureau is scheduled within 2024 to have “60” new staff completing their training and working as inspectors stationed in the city’s casinos. That would expand the regulator’s casino-inspection team to 139 people next year.

Currently, there are 83 individuals working as casino inspectors, but four will either be moving on or retiring by next year.

According to the opinion document, in order to have a DICJ inspector present daily in just one of city’s casinos, up to “six staff” from the gaming bureau must be assigned to cover the task. This takes account of “rest days and holidays”. Currently, a single DICJ casino inspector is having to scrutinise “multiple casino venues within a single work shift” added the opinion document.

The short staffing is likely to persist despite the closure of several satellite casinos, stated the opinion document. DICJ is also said to need more staff for its “investigation” work. Currently, Macau has 30 casinos, including 11 satellite gaming venues.

As of November 17, DICJ’s overall workforce had 388 individuals, according to the opinion document.

For 2024, DICJ will have in total 181 new faces, including some casino inspectors. But 125 current staff members will be leaving, most of them the “trainee inspectors”. So on a net basis, the gaming bureau’s workforce size will only expand to 445 – or by about 15 percent – by the end of 2024, the budget plan shows.