Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming January 2016 24 amongst other measures, would contribute to cleaning the junket sector of undesirable agents, increase its reputation and, ultimately, improve the overall standards of the gaming industry. However, if the mandate is to indiscriminately push gaming promoters out of business one must prepare for a hard landing after all. For so long as China imposes restrictions on capital outflow and enforcement of markers is a matter of patience rather than one of contract, gaming promoters have an important, even if smaller, role to play. At the same time, Macau is still far from being able to sustain its tourism and entertainment market (i.e. its economy) predominantly Rules of the game on mass market and non-gaming attractions. You may only achieve an equilibrium between such opposing expectations if you allow gaming promoters a dignified way to reinvent their businesses. This reinvention may tap into the great wealth of experience, knowledge and resources gaming promoters have amassed throughout the heydays of the VIP market and direct it to the pursuit of the desired economic diversification. A way to start, if I may, would be to scrap that so counterproductive provision (section 4 of the Gaming Promotion Regulation – regulation 6/2002) that prevents licensed junket companies from having other companies as their shareholders. Such a provision effectively impedes the formation of proper corporate structures and thus the gaming promoters’ ability to normally access regulated financial markets. Instead they have to rely on backdoor listings of profit share interests drafted in two page agreements or to resort to expensive high interest loans from uninformed and often unknown investors. Rather than preventing, such limitation actually promotes the unfortunate events that we witnessed happening to Dore. If a more robust framework is accompanied by a real-life and transparent approach to business, then balance may be reinstated and Macau may play an even more dominant role at a regional level. At a time when to regulate is in order, one may only imagine what Macau would look like if, from the beginning, it would have adopted regulations as prescriptive as the ones produced by jurisdictions such as Singapore or New Jersey. The hand would certainly be more visible; the gaming industry would probably not. “Mr Paulo Chan, appointed to office in early December, is a respected man of laws, having been a Public Prosecutor for almost two decades. He has a very challenging task ahead.” At the same time, Macau is still far from being able to sustain its tourism and entertainment market (i.e. its economy) predominantly on mass market and non- gaming attractions. You may only achieve an equilibrium between such opposing expectations if you allow gaming promoters a dignified way to reinvent their businesses.