An ongoing court case against Alvin Chau, the former boss of Suncity, which previously bankrolled around half of Macau’s VIP play read more, shows the industry is still on Beijing’s radar. This year there have been fresh restrictions imposed on so-called junkets, organisations arranging travel and credit.
Gaming revenue, which peaked at $45 billion in 2013, has never recovered from the blow to VIP business, sinking to $36 billion by 2019, per Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. His earlier anti-graft campaign scared away the biggest spenders. That trajectory assumes no further crackdowns on an industry already deeply impacted by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 10 years in office.
