The Macau government’s proposed rejig of gambling-credit law is unlikely to have much impact on the city’s existing satellite casinos, said Hoffman Ma Ho Man, one of the bosses of Macau gaming resort Ponte 16. Though he added that was because such credit issuance had dramatically reduced in the Macau market before and since the new 10-year gaming concessions that started on January 1.
Law No.16/2022 also says management-company entities are prohibited from having a management contract with more than one gaming concessionaire and are forbidden from “managing the financial activities” of the casinos, namely, the “accounting or settlement of chips and funds arising from gambling”.
“Since the update of Macau’s gaming regulations [in 2022], we’ve already witnessed the collapse of the whole gambling credit business in the market… so I don’t think it [the new bill] is going to cause any further huge impact,” Mr Ma, deputy chairman of Hong Kong-listed Success Universe Group Ltd, an investor in Ponte 16.
The latest legal proposal – on casino concessionaire- and junket-issued credit for gambling – was briefly outlined on April 21 by the city’s Executive Council, an advisory body to the government. Under some of its provisions, the so-called ‘management companies’ – the new term for the non-concessionaire entities permitted to run satellite casino venues under a concessionaire licence – would not themselves be allowed to “establish any casino gaming credit contract” or perform any related “legal acts”.
The bill is yet to be scrutinised by Macau’s Legislative Assembly.
The proposed law “makes sense”, in terms of at least clarifying to the industry and to investors, the entities allowed to extend gaming credit, remarked Mr Ma.
Macau is now down to 11 satellite casinos in the new-concessions era. Regulatory changes in the run-up to the new system, allow third-party promoters of satellite casinos the option to transform themselves respectively into a management-company entity, following a three-year grace period. Such management companies will not be permitted to share revenue with a satellite casino’s licensee, a change from previous practices.
A separate law regulating the city’s junkets and management companies, known as Law No.16/2022, forbids so-called “collaborators” – people who have traditionally cooperated with Macau junkets and assisted their gaming promotion business – from issuing gambling credit.
