Inside Asian Gaming

January 2012 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 21 Macau Policy Dubai Mall—Gulf states took 25 years to develop alternatives to oil and gas income for it from Beijing—as there is in the Gulf. Macau isn’t relying for its public income on an exhaustible supply of fossil fuel. It’s relying on the human fuel of an increasingly affluent Chinese population that wants to gamble and shop. The chance of the Chinese government doing a U-turn on its relatively open door policy in allowing its citizens to visit Macau doesn’tseemhigh.ButhowwiseisitforMacau not to have a credible ‘Plan B’ ten years into the gaming liberalisation experiment? Even a cursory reading of Macau history should give the territory’s leaders some pause for thought. Macau was the most important trading port on the Pearl River Delta until it was rapidly overtaken by Hong Kong in the first half of the 19th century. Although it’s extremely unlikely in the short-term (i.e. the next five to ten years) that casino gaming will be legalised anywhere else in mainland China, it’s by no means impossible that it could happen a decade or two on from that. To put things in perspective, Stanley Ho’s Macau casino monopoly ran for just over 50 years. The People’s Republic of China has only been in existence for 62 years. In the life of a community and in public policy terms those are frighteningly short periods of time. It took the Gulf states around 25 years to institute fully some new policies for improving the education of their indigenous population and diversifying their economies. Even if you buy into the ‘inexhaustible demand for gaming and leisure’ thesis of Sheldon Adelson, the Chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp, there could be many spin off benefits to the casino industry in Macau from economic diversification. One is likely to be an improvement in the skills and educational attainments of local people. The Macau government’s response to the challenge of economic diversification currently gives little ground for optimism. A local lawmaker recently renewed the The authorities’ largesse arguably reflects a spectacularly unimaginative, even timid, approach to public policy. The Macau government would rather sedate its own people with cash handouts than lead them in the challenge of moving up the employment value chain.