Inside Asian Gaming

IAG SEP 2020年9月 亞博匯 52 IN FOCUS concessionaire and particularly comply with their internal control requirements, so you’ve really got an additional layer that is not formal regulation, but clearly it is in the interests of the concessionaires to ensure that the junkets are compliant. There have been a number of instances where junkets have been terminated (by concessionaires) for non-compliance and moved on.” That Macau’s concessionaires haven’t ploughed more resources into expanding their own VIP-direct programs at the expense of junket play ultimately comes down to this issue of bad debt and the fact that irrecoverable money cannot be offset against GGR for the purposes of calculating gaming tax. Nevertheless, they were handed a reminder of the need to maintain close oversight of their junket partners in 2018 when the Court of Second Instance (TSI) ruled that Wynn Macau Ltd was jointly liable for a HK$6 million (US$774,000) investor deposit stolen by an employee of junket operator Dore Entertainment Co Ltd in 2015. The sum formed part of a much larger theft by the employee, estimated to be somewhere in the vicinity of HK$700 million (US$90 million), which led four investors to file lawsuits against Wynn and Dore. While only one of those proved successful, the TSI’s ruling made it clear that a concessionaire is to be considered jointly liable with any gaming promoter conducting activities within its casinos for any damages the junket causes to third parties. According to a summary provided by Macau law firm MdME, “This Court decision clarifies that … the legislator intention is to give more responsibility to concessionaires in controlling activities carried in their casinos by the gaming promoters, their directors and collaborators. “Therefore, it concluded it is reasonable and logical to require them to supervise these activities, as well as to assume a joint responsibility with the gaming promoters, their directors and collaborators in event of liability arising from the acts performed by them. If the gaming concessionaire does not fulfil its supervision duty, allowing or tolerating the gaming promotor to develop this kind of activity in its casinos, joint