The figures were disclosed on Thursday by the Office of the Secretary for Security.

During the first quarter this year, the authorities recorded 162 gaming-related fraud cases, representing about 27.7 percent of all gaming-related crimes logged during the period. The tally of fraud cases increased by 6.6 percent year-on-year.

The second-largest category of gaming-related crime – unlicensed money exchange for gambling purposes – totalled 119 cases in the first quarter, down 9.8 percent from a year earlier.

There was no official explanation for the changes in gaming-related crime trends in the latest quarterly disclosure.

The first-quarter data showed year-on-year increases in several other categories of gaming-related crime, including assault, threats, misappropriation and theft, although the number of such cases remained significantly lower than fraud or illegal money-exchange offences.

During the same period, cases involving illegal lending for gambling purposes totalled 45, representing an 11.8 percent year-on-year decline. This category has previously been classified by Macau’s security authorities as a “serious” crime affecting public security.

The high-limit area features eight ‘smart’ baccarat tables, and is located next to the restaurant Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao, according to GGRAsia site checks on Monday.

At the time of GGRAsia’s visit, the new high-limit tables carried minimum bets of either HKD3,000 (US$383) or HKD5,000 for the main betting propositions, i.e., the banker hand or the player hand.

That compared to minimum baccarat table bet levels on the main floor of the Londoner Grand Casino mostly in the range of HKD1,000 to HKD2,000.

 “We are pleased to confirm the Londoner Grand Casino opened a high-limit zone in May, offering premium service to cater to the needs of our guests,” Sands China told GGRAsia in a written reply.

The eight baccarat tables at the new high-limit gaming zone featured side bet options including tie, Lucky 6, Small and Big Lucky 6, Lucky 7, 2-card Lucky 7, 3-card Lucky 7, and Super Lucky 7, as well as the option for pair bets, as per GGRAsia’s Monday site observations.

While the baccarat side bets ‘Monkey no Monkey’ and ‘Pairs+’ were not featured at those high-limit baccarat tables, they could be found at some of the tables on the main floor of the Londoner Grand Casino. Those side bets – approved in late March in Macau – were described as “pioneered by Sands” in marketing slogans displayed on the gaming floor.

As per GGRAsia’s Monday checks, the main-floor minimum bet levels for baccarat play at the Londoner Grand Casino were generally lower than those at sister venue The Londoner Casino, also at The Londoner Macao resort. Minimum bet levels at main-floor live baccarat tables at the latter venue – all using ‘smart’ technology – were mostly between HKD2,000 and HKD3,000.

The Londoner Grand Casino, a revamped version of the former Pacifica casino, opened in September 2024.

In a Monday note, the institution said the daily run rate averaged approximately MOP586 million in the week ended June 14. That was around 20 percent below the average recorded in May, when Macau generated approximately MOP729 million per day in GGR.

It was also down 16 percent compared with the first week of June, when daily revenue averaged circa MOP700 million, per the memo.

Citi said the softer performance was “likely due” to the start of the FIFA World Cup on June 11, which was “taking away some Macau players’ betting budgets”.

This year’s World Cup runs until July 19 and features an expanded format with 48 teams and 104 matches. The investment bank said previously that this tournament’s impact on Macau’s casino GGR could be more pronounced than that of previous editions.

The institution added that VIP hold in the second week of June appeared to be “slightly lower” than in the previous week.

Despite the slower momentum, Citi maintained its June GGR forecast for Macau at MOP19.00 billion, which would represent a 10-percent year-on-year decline.

To meet that forecast, the market would need to generate an average of around MOP625 million per day for the remainder of the month, according to the institution’s calculations.

Citi suggested that a series of shows in Macau could help support the number of visitor arrivals and gaming demand in the latter part of June.

The bank noted that Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd is hosting concerts by Hong Kong singer Keung To, while Sands China Ltd is staging performances by Taiwan singer Wakin Chau at the Londoner Arena.

“We believe these could help mitigate the potential GGR decline,” Citi stated.

Ms Ng was sworn in and assumed office on Monday, after her appointment was announced on the same day in an official notice issued by the Macau government.

In her first public remarks after taking office, Ms Ng thanked the Chief Executive and China’s central government for their confidence, describing the appointment as both an “honour and a deep responsibility”.

The Secretary for Economy and Finance is one of the principal officials in the Macau government and oversees a portfolio that includes the city’s gaming industry, tourism-related economic development, financial services, labour affairs, consumer protection, taxation and economic policy.

Ms Ng had been appointed to lead Macau’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (also known as DICJ), in May 2025. 

In May this year, her appointment as DICJ director had been renewed for a further year. There has not yet been an announcement on who will succeed her as head of the gaming regulator.

In her Monday comments, Ms Ng said every policy decision in the economy and finance sector was closely linked to Macau’s future development and the daily lives of the city’s residents.

Amid what she described as a complex and volatile external economic environment, the new Secretary for Economy and Finance said her team would work to implement the government’s policy agenda and pursue practical solutions to challenges facing the city.

A key focus would be the implementation of Macau’s economic diversification strategy away from the gaming sector, “with the aim of strengthening” the city’s “economic resilience,” Ms Ng stated.

“The road ahead is full of challenges, but also great opportunities,” Ms Ng stated, adding that she believed Macau’s economy could enter “a new stage of growth” through the joint efforts of government, businesses and residents.

Ms Ng succeeds Tai Kin Ip in the post of Secretary for Economy and Finance.

A veteran civil servant, Ms Ng had served as director of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau immediately before taking charge of the gaming regulator. Prior to that, she spent more than two decades working at the Labour Affairs Bureau.

The appointment was announced in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday. Mr Ho, 49, has a background spanning investment banking, capital markets and legal practice. He previously worked at JP Morgan and law firm Linklaters. 

He also worked at Deutsche Bank AG’s Hong Kong branch, where he served as head of Hong Kong and Macau origination, overseeing the structuring and launching of new financial securities.

According to the filing, Mr Ho is currently honorary consul of Cabo Verde in Macau, president of the Money Exchangers Association of Macao, and chairman of P&W Money Changer Ltd.

Mr Ho formerly served as executive director and chairman of Hong Kong-listed Apollo Future Mobility Group Ltd, and since May this year has been an independent non-executive director of Hong Kong-listed Prosperous Industrial (Holdings) Ltd.

Paradise Entertainment said Mr Ho will receive an annual director’s fee of HKD120,000 (US$15,315).

Paradise Entertainment Ltd reported a profit of HKD139.4 million for full-year 2025, down 63.5 percent from the prior year.

The company said in March that nearly 93.7 percent, or HKD130.6 million, of its 2025 profit was generated by the operation of Casino Kam Pek Paradise in downtown Macau, a business segment now classified as a “discontinued operation”.

Paradise Entertainment is the parent of electronic table games (ETGs) supplier LT Game Ltd. The casino technology firm has said that it aims to strengthen its presence in its home market of Macau and expand its reach overseas with its latest slot and ETG products.

The appointment was confirmed in an official notice published by the Macau government in its official gazette on Monday.

According to the notice, China’s State Council appointed Ms Ng to the post on June 10, following her nomination by Macau’s Chief Executive, Sam Hou Fai.

The notice did not indicate when Ms Ng would formally assume her new duties or who would succeed her as head of the gaming regulator.

Ms Ng succeeds Tai Kin Ip as Secretary for Economy and Finance. Mr Tai left the position earlier this year.

The Secretary for Economy and Finance is one of the principal officials in the Macau government and oversees a portfolio that includes the city’s gaming industry, tourism-related economic development, financial services, labour affairs, consumer protection, taxation and economic policy.

Ms Ng had been appointed to lead the DICJ, the body responsible for regulating Macau’s casino industry, in May 2025.

In May this year, her appointment as DICJ director was renewed for a further year. At the time, an official dispatch said the renewal was based on her “civic integrity” and “professional competence”.

A veteran civil servant, Ms Ng had served as director of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau immediately before taking charge of the gaming regulator. Prior to that, she spent more than two decades working at the Labour Affairs Bureau.

The analysis covers show sessions hosted at the performance venues operated by Galaxy Entertainment, including its circa 16,000-capacity Galaxy Arena at Galaxy Macau, and those by Sands China, including its circa 14,000-capacity Venetian Arena at The Venetian Macao. Given the lead times on staging large shows, the second-quarter 2026 figures might not change by June-end.

The two operators had an aggregate of 50 show sessions scheduled in the second-quarter, April to June period, from GGRAsia checks. That is down 42.5 percent on the figure of 87 staged in the same period last year as assessed by GGRAsia. Many stars are having a maximum of two concerts across a single weekend this time, compared to some ‘mini-residencies’ across several weekends in second-quarter 2025.

During the April to June period, Galaxy Arena was host to 16 show sessions, and Venetian Arena was at 7. In the same period in 2025, Galaxy Arena had 18 show sessions, and Venetian Arena had 12.

GGRAsia’s review for the two operators’ hosted shows excludes private or invitation-only events, and sports events.

In the second quarter this year, the two arenas collectively hosted acts from Asian pop artists including Billkin, Chen Linong, Hailai Amu, Exo, Wu Bai & China Blue, Kelly Chen, IVE and DxS. None of the acts cover more than a weekend, GGRAsia has understood from show-calendar checks.

Second-quarter 2025 had seen the two arenas in aggregate host performances from Asian artists G Dragon, Jacky Cheung and Sammi Cheung, with the latter two Hong Kong pop acts having performed over consecutive weekends. A series of concerts by Jacky Cheung in June and July 2025, in particular, had been mentioned by banking institution Citigroup as lifting the city’s premium mass gambling business.

Second-quarter 2026 concert data so far for Galaxy Entertainment and Sands China’s Cotai venues indicate that their first-half 2026 shows will tally 116, down 14.7 percent from the 136 staged in first-half 2025.

Galaxy Entertainment’s first-half 2026 show tally is on track for 77, down 3.8 percent from first-half 2025’s tally of 80. Sands China’s first-half 2026 show sessions so far, have reached 39, down 30.4 percent from 56 in the same period last year.

Industry perspective

GGRAsia sought comment from a local events specialist regarding the second-quarter and first-half 2026 data.

Lawrence Che Fok Sang, chief executive and a founder at Macau-based entertainment production company Chessman Entertainment & Production Co Ltd, said this year’s line-up will still have had strong appeal to gaming and non-gaming patrons.

An example was Taiwan rock act ‘Wu Bai & China Blue’, which recently performed at Galaxy Arena.

Though he noted it was “true” that 2025 had marked the year “some ‘A-list’ artists” had “ended their concert cycle featuring Macau stops” that had offered multiple shows.

Grant Chum Kwan Lock, Sands China’s chief executive and president, had acknowledged in the first-quarter earnings call of the firm’s parent Las Vegas Sands Corp, that bookings for“big tour acts” had “slowed down” so far in 2026, versus 2025 and 2024.

Mr Chum had acknowledged that entertainment content is utilised to drive visits to the company’s casino resorts.

The Sands China CEO also noted on the call: “We have the ability to bring content of different size, different spectatorship because we have access to both the Venetian Arena, which is the bigger arena, as well as the mid-size Londoner Arena.” The latter has a circa 6,000 capacity.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 football tournament, running from June 11 to July 19, was likely to be a distraction for Macau casino customers, as the sports event might divert money from their casino gaming budgets, several investment analysts suggested in recent memos on the sector.

But from mid-July, a “busy” calendar of concerts and events were likely to be “catalysts” that could drive Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) recovery, remarked Citigroup in a note issued earlier this week.

The figure was down 15.7 percent from the MOP9.07 billion logged in April, the data showed.

For the first five months of 2026, the gaming tax tally reached MOP42.52 billion, a 21.9-percent increase from a year earlier.

Under Macau’s 10-year gaming concession system that started on January 1, 2023, the effective tax on casino GGR is 40 percent.

The latest data from the Financial Services Bureau show that gaming taxes accounted for nearly 87.5 percent of the Macau government’s MOP48.62 billion in current revenue recorded in the five months to May 31.

The tax-take figures for a given calendar period and the city’s casino GGR during the same time frame are not directly comparable for several reasons.

These include the fact that there is typically a delay between the point at which GGR is recorded by Macau’s casino operators and the point at which the government registers the corresponding tax payment.

The Macau government expects nearly MOP92.53 billion in revenue from gaming taxes this year. The tally in the first five months this year represented nearly 46.0 percent of that amount.

The institution said historical analysis suggests major international football tournaments tend to divert part of Macau players’ betting budgets towards sports-related events. 

With this year’s World Cup running from today (Thursday, June 11) to July 19 and featuring an expanded format of 48 teams and 104 matches, Citi believes this tournament’s impact could be more pronounced than those of previous editions.

“We anticipate a near-term slowdown in Macau GGR due to the most prestigious soccer tournament” starting this month, wrote analyst George Choi.

The bank forecasts Macau casino GGR to decline by 10 percent year-on-year in June and by 5 percent year-on-year in July, “before a swift recovery driven by a strong post-tournament event calendar”.

Citi pointed to UEFA Euro 2024 – held between June 14 and July 14 – as a recent example. During that tournament, Macau’s daily GGR reportedly fell to a low of MOP514 million (US$63.7 million) per day, about 17 percent below the market’s 2024 daily average of MOP620 million.

“Macau GGR took similar dives during both the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and UEFA Euro 2016,” Mr Choi noted. 

“If history repeats itself, this year’s major soccer tournament could have a more severe impact due to its new format and the unprecedented 104 total matches,” he added.

Notwithstanding the expected near-term softness, Citi said it remained positive on Macau gaming equities, noting that sector valuations remain below their historical average.

“Despite this temporary slowdown, we remain bullish on Macau,” the analyst stated, adding that Macau gaming stocks were currently trading at around 7.3 times forward enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortisation, compared with a long-term average of approximately 11.4 times.

The brokerage said a strong programme of entertainment and sporting events in Macau after the World Cup should help support a recovery in visitor arrivals and gaming demand, anticipating GGR to grow circa 5.7 percent year-on-year in the second half of 2026.

“We anticipate a swift GGR recovery immediately after the tournament in mid-July, led by a busy calendar of star-studded concerts and events,” Mr Choi stated.

Among the catalysts cited were major concerts – including by K-pop groups Babymonster, TWS, Enhypen, and Taiwan singer Zhao Chuan – and the NBA China Games featuring the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks.

“This strong non-gaming line-up should attract visitors and stimulate spending, ensuring a return to positive GGR growth for the rest of the year,” the analyst added.

The Nasdaq-listed casino firm said the maturity date of its 2020 credit facilities had been extended from April 29, 2027, to June 9, 2031, under a third amended and restated facility agreement signed on Tuesday.

The revised arrangement also established an incremental facility of HKD6.44 billion, bringing total commitments under the credit facilities to approximately HKD21.68 billion.

Melco Resorts said key terms of the financing package, including pricing and financial covenants, remained unchanged. The company added that its subsidiary MCO Nominee One Ltd, the borrower under the facility, had agreed to pay customary fees to lenders participating in the extension and incremental facility.

The original revolving credit facilities were established in April 2020 through a senior facilities agreement involving MCO Nominee One and Bank of China Macau Branch, acting as agent.

Melco Resorts runs casinos in Macau, one in the Philippine capital Manila, and several in the Republic of Cyprus. In the third quarter last year, it launched a new casino in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

In April, Melco Resorts said it had cash and bank balances of US$1.07 billion as of March 31, against total debt of US$6.67 billion. The company stated it had available liquidity of about US$2.36 billion and capital expenditure of US$73.6 million during the first quarter this year, mainly tied to enhancement projects in Macau.

At the same time, Melco Resorts said it would pay US$375.0 million for the “Melco” and other related trademarks.

The casino firm is also progressing with the rebranding of the Countdown Hotel as ‘REM’ at its City of Dreams complex (pictured) in Macau.