MACAU BUSINESS
Middlemen crisis?
“There will always be a role for junket operators, albeit it will probably look very different to what it used to look like. Probably smaller in volume and their customers and their funds will have to be squeaky clean”
“investor deposits” in junket rooms. This has been flagged before repeatedly. Junkets have lacked proper oversight and regulation (although regulation has improved over the past 5+ years), and a key area will be reigning in junket activities,’ Bernstein analysts indicated in a note. The downsizing of the junket market is an ongoing
process that will now speed up. “This has been clear for some time and will lead to a
much smaller junket operation in Macau than in the past (again, nothing new). Junket deposits have been a problem in the past and the Government has been vocal about the need to reform this system”, the same note by Bernstein added.
26 NOVEMBER 2021
During the September 20 public consultation session, junket representatives raised a number of questions. Kwok Chi Chung, President of the Macau Association of Gaming and Entertainment Promoters, asked for more details on the proposed criminal penalties for the practice of operators taking cash deposits from the general public, which is already illegal in the territory, as well as the working relationship between junket operators and gaming operators defined in the consultation document. In the proposed gaming law revision, local authorities
suggest a possible five-year prison sentence for illegal deposits made in VIP rooms by players, and to hold concessionaires more accountable for the actions of junkets operating under their roof. Kwok suggested the government could think of ways to legalise the practice of junkets taking capital from the public for running operations “under strict government supervision”. “In the past 20 years, there has been some negative
news about the junket segment; I personally agree there could be more supervision,” he says, adding the gaming law revision could be beneficial to the junket investors and operators as they could have “a better image”. “As long as you don’t break the law, I think it would not be a big deal for us with more government oversight.” Could the proposed rules on top of the obstacles
already in place in terms of outflows of capital from the Mainland be translated in the “death knell” for junket operators? Not exactly, argue both Ben Lee and António Lobo Vilela.
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