According to an Industry Representative, Only Eight of Macau’s 36 Licensed Junkets are Open

Despite the Macau government issuing 36 junket licenses in January, just eight Macau junkets are currently open, according to the president of the Macau Professional Association of Gambling Promoters.

U Io Hung stated in an exclusive interview with Inside Asian Gaming that not all licensed junket operators had signed agreements with a Macau concessionaire and that even some of those who had have yet to start actively cooperating. The interview appears in the March issue of IAG, which was available last Friday, March 3.

This, he said, is in response to the new junket law that has been in effect in Macau since January 1, 2023, and which forbids junkets from running their own VIP rooms inside the city’s casinos and restricts them to rolling commissions only. Revenue share agreements are also prohibited under the new law.

As a result, there are currently just eight active junket operators, each of which only has three concessionaires.

According to U Io Hung, who also owns the authorized junket Pacific Intermediário Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, the other three concessionaires have signed contracts with junket promoters but have not yet begun operating their junket businesses.

U Io Hung claims the industry is “not evolving healthily and is practically gone” in his in-depth interview with IAG, detailing the difficult environment for junkets in 2023.

Nonetheless, he does think that junkets will endure in the end.

The government’s regulation is welcomed by the industry, and it hopes for healthy growth, but it shouldn’t go overboard, he added. “There is no realistic room for our survival if the rules are excessively stringent.

Everyone would agree that a good referee makes a football game more organized, but if the referee goes overboard, the game won’t go as planned.