China has reiterated its commitment to cracking down on the illegal promotion of casino gambling, local media reported citing Chinese Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun.
Casinos are illegal across the country, excluding in Macau, and so is the promotion of this type of gambling venues. Chinese lawmakers are stepping up efforts to prevent the illicit advertising of illicit gambling service after 18 Crown Resorts employees were detained late last year after allegedly promoting the Australian operator’s casinos to potential players from different parts of the East Asian country.
The arrests unlocked a high-profile scandal that, among many other things, resulted in Crown Resorts reporting a massive decrease in VIP revenue for the first half of the current financial year.
Chinese high roller players are a casino customer group favored by high-class resorts in the Asia-Pacific region and Las Vegas due to their spending habits. A crackdown on gambling launched by President Xi Jinping in 2013 saw massive withdrawal of VIP players from Macau. And as mentioned above, Crown Resorts’ Perth and Melbourne properties saw a considerable decrease in VIP visits in the weeks and months following its staff arrests. With China planning to further crack down on gambling, the withdrawal trend may intensify.
Minster Guo told local media that they will probe comprehensively into the matter, in order to identify individuals that promote overseas casino gambling to Mainland China residents and to punish wrongdoers “severely”.
Generally speaking, casino operators send their employees to China to attract visitors to their resorts. The official purpose of these delegations is to promote tourist attractions at the properties. However, it is believed that their actual aim is to lure big-spending players into the resorts’ casino floors.
The revisited gambling crackdown comes as part of the Chinese government’s effort to stop the illicit flow of money from the country.
Minster Guo further informed media that online gambling has also been targeted by the government and law enforcement agencies. The police will have to pursue any providers of illegal online gaming and betting services and “underground banks” that fuel players with funds for playing online.
While the Mainland is gearing up for a new wave of clampdown measures, Macau is showing stable signs of recovery. Gross gambling revenue at the casino hub soared almost 18% in February to MOP22.991 billion, the largest monthly increase for the past seven months. The positive results came after the administrative region’s diversion from its previous focus on casino gambling to the provision of more diverse non-gambling entertainment services. The seven-month revenue growth streak came after more than a two-year-long one of double-digit monthly revenue declines.
