Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming December 2014 30 H aving dealt cards at a Macau peninsula casino for just over nine months, a croupier in her 40s surnamed Fong worked up the nerve to start pilfering chips to subsidize her extracurricular gambling habit. Over the course of a month, she managed to secret away MOP520,000 (US$65,000) worth of chips before she was caught by her employer. Though dealer theft is practically inconsequential in the context of Macau’s multibillion dollar casino industry, Ms Fong’s crime— which is being investigated by Macau’s Judiciary Police—is indicative of what Davis Fong (no relation), director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau, refers to as a “timebomb” that’s primed to go off as the second wave of Cotai megaresorts start opening next year and draw even more locals into the gaming workforce. Casino staff are not allowed to gamble at venues operated by their employers, and so during Stanley Ho’s 42-year effective Despite the proliferation of casino resorts in Macau over the past decade, the prevalence of gambling among the general population has actually declined. Yet employees in the gaming industry have become disproportionately susceptible to developing gambling problems, prompting calls to keep them out of casinos after hours Feature Excluding the Vulnerable