Macau casino operator Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd has been authorised by the city’s government to preserve three existing Mocha Clubs-branded slot parlours.
Mocha Golden Dragon, Mocha Porto Interior and Mocha Hotel Sintra will continue in business beyond December 31, under a contracted management company by arrangement with their gaming licensee Melco Resorts. That is according to a Monday press release from the city’s regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
“Following a comprehensive analysis and evaluation, the Macau SAR government has granted authorisation to Melco’s application to operate three existing slot machine parlours… through the contracting of a management company,” said the regulator in its Monday update, and naming the three venues.
GGRAsia approached Melco Resorts, seeking more information on the management-company arrangement. It had required the approval of the city’s Chief Executive.
Melco Resorts referred GGRAsia to the casino regulator’s Monday press statement.
The Mocha brand had until recently been housed at third-party owned venues across Macau. But under the updated regulatory framework for Macau gaming coinciding with fresh 10-year gaming concessions that came into effect in January 2023, the city’s satellite venues – a category including Mocha Clubs – were required to switch to a management company model by the end of a three-year grace period – or become a core operation of their licensee – if they wished to stay in business.
Only one of the full-casino satellites – Casino L’Arc Macau – is moving to either of those options, i.e., full takeover by its own licensee SJM Resorts Ltd – by the December 31 deadline this year. But Melco Resorts has opted for the management-firm setup in the case of the three Mocha slot parlours mentioned.
Melco Resorts oversaw the closure of its own full-casino satellite, Casino Grand Dragon in Taipa, in late September. It has also shut three Mocha Clubs. Mocha Kuong Fat ceased operations on September 24; Mocha Hotel Grand Dragon on November 24, and Mocha Hotel Royal on December 28.
An aggregate of 320 staff was employed at the now-shuttered Casino Grand Dragon and the three closed Mocha Clubs slot parlours, according to publicly-available data reviewed by GGRAsia. Satellite workers are either guaranteed work with the venue’s parent licensee, given preference for available posts, or offered other support, depending on their eligibility under arrangements between the licensees and the city’s authorities.
Melco Resorts had first announced the closure of Casino Grand Dragon and some of its Mocha Clubs slot parlours in June, noting that was a decision based on the company’s “overall development strategy” and compliance with Macau law.
At the time of Melco Resorts’ third-quarter earnings published on November 7, the company noted that – following the closure of Casino Grand Dragon and Mocha Kuong Fat in late September – a total of 15 gaming tables had been reallocated to the group’s Cotai flagship City of Dreams Macau, and 90 gaming machines were reallocated to its majority-owned Studio City resort in Cotai.
