Satellite venue Casino Casa Real (pictured in a file photo), on Macau peninsula, will stop operating at 11:59pm on November 21, said its gaming-licence holder SJM Resorts Ltd in a Thursday announcement.
After Casino Legend Palace closed at the end of Wednesday (November 12), the shuttering of Casa Real will leave only five satellites – all under SJM Resorts’ licence – remaining in the Macau market. Under regulatory changes parallel to the city’s new gaming concessions that started in January 2023, the legacy arrangements for satellite business will not be possible from the end of this year.
In a Thursday release, Macau’s casino regulator – the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau – said that it would maintain “close communication” with the city’s Labour Affairs Bureau regarding SJM Resorts’ pledged relocation of the “285 workers” employed at Casino Casa Real.
The Macau operators that have directly employed staff at satellites have pledged to the government to absorb those employees into their core business.
Casino Legend Palace – part of the waterfront leisure and entertainment complex Macau Fisherman’s Wharf on the peninsula – ended its gaming operations at 11:59pm on Wednesday, affirmed the casino regulator in its Thursday release. The bureau oversees such closures.
Prior to Casino Legend Palace’s shuttering, Casino Emperor Palace – located within the Grand Emperor Hotel in Macau’s central business district – ended business on October 30. Casino Grandview, located in Taipa, shut in late July. Both were under SJM Resorts’ gaming rights.
The remaining satellites are: Casino Landmark, Casino Kam Pek Paradise, Casino Fortuna, Casino Ponte 16 and Casino Le Royal Arc, also known as Casino L’Arc Macau.
Of those, SJM Resorts has said it will take the gaming operation at the Ponte 16 resort – near the Inner Harbour – and that at L’Arc Macau, downtown, into its core operations. Details of the arrangements have yet to be disclosed.
In its third-quarter results filing published on Wednesday, SJM Holdings Ltd – the Hong Kong-listed entity controlling SJM Resorts – flagged “significant headwinds” in the reporting period, mentioning the “phased cessation of satellite casino operations” and “intensifying market competition”.
