The number of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) made by Macau casino operators to the city’s authorities fell by 15.5 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of this year. That is according to data issued on Monday by Macau’s Financial Intelligence Office.
There were 866 such reports – representing 51.6 percent of all transactions flagged in the city between January 1 and September 30 – versus 1,025 notifications made by the gaming firms in the same period a year earlier.
Macau casino gross gaming revenue fell by 53.1 percent in the first nine months of this year, as the demand in the city’s casino industry has been severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The city’s casinos are required to report to the local government any transaction of MOP500,000 (US$61,800) or above, although that does not mean that such a transaction will be flagged as suspicious.
The total number of STRs received by the Financial Intelligence Office during the first three quarters of 2022 was 1,677, a reduction of 13.4 percent compared to the same period in 2021.
“The change was mainly due to the decrease in the number of STRs reported by the gaming sector,” said the intelligence unit.
The tally of flagged transactions from the financial institutions and insurance companies sector fell by 8.1 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2022, to 611. The latest number represented 36.5 percent of all suspicious transactions in the year to September 30.
Suspicious transactions under the “other institutions” heading tallied 200, down 19.0 percent year-on-year, and were 11.9 percent of the total.
The number of suspicious transaction reports filed by Macau gaming operators for the whole of 2021 went up 9.5 percent year-on-year, to 1,330, from 1,215 instances in 2020.
