Macau Government Keeping Junkets in Dark About Post Suncity Future

Macau’s junkets say they are beingness kept ‘in confusion and fear’ virtually the future tense of their industry, following the arrest lastly month of Suncity CEO Alvin Chau.

Veteran junket investor Luiz Lam Kai Kuong told Macau Business Wednesday that the gaming hub’s government activity had failed to provide “concrete answers near what is natural event and what is going to happen.”

Lam said he wanted to live whether the junkets would follow capable to run lawfully in Macau inward the future.

“What the authorities should doh is to add up sportsmanlike most what junket operators are allowed to fare and what activities are deemed illegal,” he said. “The government activity now is just beingness evasive and ambiguous.”

Curtains for Junkets?

Chau, the brag of the world’s biggest junket, was arrested in late November past authorities inward Macau. He is accused of operating seaward online gaming sites that illegally targeted the citizens of Macau and mainland China.

Just days before his detention, prosecutors inwards the metropolis of Wenzhou inwards eastern Communist China issued a stock warrant for Chau’s arrest. He is inwards custody on charges of facilitating cross-border gambling.

The content was clear: Chinese authorities were no more yearner in the mode to tolerate the junket industry. The businesses bring money to heights rollers from the mainland to run a risk in Macau, bypassing controls on the motion of money.

Beijing is occupied in an escalating state of war against cross-border gambling and those who facilitate it. That’s as it seeks greater hold in of private working capital to maintain the stableness of the foreign exchange rate.

Macau is an self-reliant special administrative realm (SAR), below the ace country, two systems policy. But Beijing is exerting a creeping control o'er the gambling hub, and at that place are indications that Macau is willing to fare its bidding by phasing come out the junket model. Late utmost week, Macau’s gaming regulator, DICJ, told the junkets to layover loaning money to VIP clients.

Hundreds of Junket Workers Seek Help

Casinos are also facing uncertainness o'er the future of the junket model. Some are taking no more chances and experience unopen their junket VIP rooms.

Meanwhile, employees of Macau’s 85 registered junket operators fright for their jobs. The fall in of the industry could lead thousands come out of work.

Suncity’s junket arm, Sun City Gaming Promotion Company (SCGP), announced it would cease operating lowest Friday. On Wednesday, the jointure that represents gaming workers, the Federation of Workers’ Associations of Macau (FAOM), said it received requests for support from 700 workers unnatural past the closure of junket VIP rooms.

Last week, the Macau Labor Affairs Bureau reminded junkets operators they had an obligation to protect the labour rights of employees.