Inside Asian Gaming

JULY 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 49 meeting people related to this industry, so it was a natural evolution. Since I joined MdME, where I am working now, well, MdME has a huge gaming practice so on a daily basis I am doing something either for a gaming manufacturer or for a gaming promoter or someone who wants to invest or for a concessionaire. OG: I assume working in this industry must never get boring for you? CEC: One thing I realized is that this is an industry that is always reinventing itself. And there are so many things that you can do with a gaming customer, because a gaming customer can be a concessionaire, or a provider of online gaming or someone that has an idea for a product and wants to put it on the market and wants your assistance. Then you need to understand the specificities of that product, because there might be another gaming manufacturer with a wholly different product and you have to work out a solution for this. Also, I think this is very relevant, the growth of gaming in Asia as a whole – you have emerging jurisdictions where gaming is growing a lot. You have Vietnam, you INDUSTRY PROFILE have Cambodia, you have Laos, Japan is upcoming but that’s still a new thing. Also Korea and Taiwan – it is an interesting industry to work in within Asia. OG: Where do you see Macau in 10 years’ time? CEC: I think Macau will continue to develop in terms of its gaming industry. For sure it will continue to be the biggest gaming jurisdiction in Asia and the world in terms of revenue. It will have competition but competition most likely will be good for Macau. I expect to see, with the concessions coming to an end, several changes happening. There might be one new operator or more than one new operator in the market, and I think we will have a better industry. I think the future concessionaires will give more to the community because the government has learnt and when we have a new public tender they will include obligations to give back to the community. They will have more non-gaming obligations. I expect that the non-gaming part of the industry will grow a lot. I think everyone here expects that. I believe that will be a reality. Probably we will have an industry more adapted to new customers and when I say new customers I mean millennials, the new people that are coming – mainly from Mainland China. The industry is focused on one kind of client and the client is changing so the gaming concessionaires will need to adapt to this new client. OG: When do you expect us to find out more about the public tender? CEC: For those concessions about to expire in 2020 [SJM and MGM] they need to know soon. We expect to have some clarity soon, even though I believe that until the change of Chief Executive, which will be in 2019, the most relevant decisions will not be made. OG: What achievements are you most proud of? CEC: I am a lawyer so I am always on the side. It is the client who gets the achievements. That is the way it works and I am perfectly comfortable with that. I think that for a lawyer, the achievements are recognition from your peers, recognition from the market, that we are good professionals, trustworthy professionals. This is the biggest achievement we can get.