Tighter Macau bet-credit rules become law from August 1

Apr 12, 2024 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Macau’s Legislative Assembly gave on Friday a second and final reading to a bill amending rules about issuance of credit for casino gambling in the city. The bill – which received an unanimous ‘yes’ vote from legislators – becomes law on August 1.

The bill, “Legal regime of credit concession for games of chance in casinos”, stipulates that casino concessionaires will be the only entities permitted to provide gambling credit to patrons in the Macau market.

The bill passed with 29 votes in favour, at a plenary session of the assembly.

Government-licensed junkets, known officially as gaming promoters, will not themselves be allowed to issue credit to any gamblers. A Macau junket will only be able to request a partnering casino concessionaire to extend gaming credit to players it introduces to the operator. Such an arrangement would require a notarised contract approved by Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance.

Credit that has been extended by junkets to patrons before the date the new law comes into force will still be valid under the existing bet credit legislation, Law No. 5/2004.

Legislator Chan Chak Mo, when introducing the bill during Friday’s plenary session of the assembly, gave some reasoning on banning junkets from credit issuance.

He noted under Macau’s revised regulatory framework for gaming introduce to coincide with the six operators’ 10-year concessions that began in January 2023, the role of junkets was only to “assist” concessionaires. Another factor for excluding junkets from credit issuance was “risk management”.

Lei Wai Nong, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, reiterated during Friday’s deliberation process, that the city’s casino regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, had the task of monitoring the financial status of the casino concessionaires, and their credit-issuance records.

Under a fresh regulatory framework for junkets, and which came into effect last year, coinciding with the start of new 10-year gaming concessions, each junket is only allowed to partner with one casino concessionaire. As of February 23, Macau had 19 licensed junkets. In 2013 Macau had over 200 licensed junkets.

An amendment recently added to the bill at the Macau government’s request, said that even Macau concessionaires could face termination of their right to issue gambling credit, if a Macau chief executive considered there was a “public interest” reason for doing so.

The impact of the new bet credit law on Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) should be “manageable”, remarked Macquarie Equity Research in recent notes on the city’s gaming sector. That was because the scale of Macau’s junket sector had already greatly diminished, meaning it had only a limited contribution to the city’s VIP GGR, said the institution.

Macquarie analysts Linda Huang and Howard Suen stated: “[Macau] Operators have been increasingly active on client engagement and conversion of junket VIPs to the direct VIP and premium mass segments.

“Their actions, include SJM [Holdings Ltd] ramping up its marketing team and Melco Resorts [& Entertainment Ltd] increasing its marketing investments,” added the analysts.

(Updated 5.12pm, April 12)

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