Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming July 2014 28 Parting the Veil Few scholars have studied the Chinese passion for gambling as deeply as Desmond Lam. In his latest book the University of Macau associate professor traces its evolution through the ages to the present day and the Macau phenomenon that has riveted the attention of the gaming world IAG: With the publication of your new book you have written numerous pieces in the past few years on Chinese gamblers. Why is it important to do so? Mr Lam: When I graduated in 2005-06, my PhD dissertation actually focused on explaining why people gamble, so naturally I chose to apply for a job in Macau. In late 2004, when I came here for [a job] interview I was very surprised with the growth. I had never come to Macau before then. I also realized that there were a lot of gaps in understanding Chinese gamblers, especially from a Western perspective. So that’s when I decided this would be my area of research. At the same time a lot of people kept asking me [about Chinese gamblers], a lot were expatriates who came in 2005 and 2006 when the gaming here really exploded. To me, at the time, any research was a value-add to the industry. T he recent publication of “Chopsticks and Gambling” further expands the extensive bibliography of Desmond Lam Chee Shiong on Chinese gambling, the mindset of the Chinese gambler and the history of a gambling culture that dates back thousands of years. Mr Lam, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Macau, has been studying and writing about Chinese gambling since the completion of his doctoral studies at the University of Western Australia in 2006, a time when most of the world knew little about it and the headline-making revenues it would subsequently generate. His first book, “The World of Chinese Gambling,” was published in 2009. “Chopsticks and Gambling,” released last month by Transaction Publishers, a US imprint that specializes in works on the social sciences, “explores the relationship of gambling with Chinese culture,” writes Robert McBain, chief financial officer of SJM Holdings, “drawing from history, sociology, psychology and religious studies, as well as popular culture and personal observation”. The Singapore-born Mr Lam recently sat down with Inside Asian Gaming to share some of its insights into Chinese gambling in the years since the liberalization of Macau, the only market on Chinese soil where casinos are allowed. Insights Now, a decade after the liberalization of Macau’s gaming sector, do you think the world, or the Western part, to be precise, understands more about Chinese gamblers? People are still learning. There are a lot of people looking at casino gambling, but there are less people looking at other forms of gambling by Chinese, for example, lottery gambling, sports gambling, online gambling or horseracing. When I was young my dad and mum gambled every weekend [on] typical games like mahjong or poker. It was very natural for me to see this was nothing bad, just a social activity. But Westerners can’t really understand why it is a social activity, so the whole purpose for me was to look further into it, to document some of the things that I have seen and to trace back some of the roots of Chinese gambling in an attempt to explain— probably there is no single explanation, but multiple explanations—why Chinese gamble.