Casinos made Macau one of the wealthiest places in the world — but they also brought heightened inequality and crime. Now, China is cracking down.

At 32 square kilometers, Macau is just 5% of Singapore’s size. It’s about half the size of Manhattan. Yet it has more than 35,000 hotel rooms, 30 Michelin-star restaurants, and 25 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. And it clocks gaming revenues that are six times that of the Las Vegas Strip.

It’s also one of the wealthiest places in the world.

Alidad Tash is an expert in gaming operation and strategy who worked for 10 years in Vegas and Macau with the Sands organization. He said Macau’s gaming revenue was $36 billion in pre-pandemic 2019, while the Vegas Strip raked in just $6 billion.

“Gaming is 70-80% of Macau’s GDP. It’s shockingly high,” said Tash, who now runs his own consultancy firm, 2NT8 Macau.

But the wealth rests in the hands of a few — and that, in turn, is at odds with the government’s “common prosperity” messaging. In September, officials announced a regulatory overhaul. Gaming licenses in Macau expire in June 2022.

The timing of the announcement is in line with Beijing’s regulatory crackdowns, and it means gaming operators will have to abide by new rules or risk losing their licenses. There were also hints of Chinese officials supervising the world’s largest gambling hub. All this caused shares of casino companies, particularly American operators Sands China and Wynn Macau, to plunge.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/macau-gambling-beijing-cracks-down-future-in-question-casinos-2021-11