Macau Legislative Assembly Approves New Gaming Credit Law

From August 1, 2024, a new gaming credit law will come into effect in Macau. After the proposal was submitted, the city’s Legislative Assembly approved it on April 12, 2024. The proposal received a unanimous “yes” by 29 members of the Assembly.

Conditions of the new law:

“Legal regime for granting credit for games of chance in casinos,” as the new law is officially called, was approved for the first time on May 18, 2023. However, the discussion and determining details about it, to pass the final approval, lasted for almost a year after the preliminary decision.

There are a few conditions for granting the funds to operators. Only the city’s six concessionaires are allowed to grant the credit, and junkets licensed by the government aren’t allowed to do this. Agencies that would be allowed to issue credits on the concessionaire’s behalf will be formed, so the promoters will be allowed to sign a contract with them and lend the chips and recover the belongings. After that, the contract will have to be approved by the Secretary for Economy and Finance. 

After the first approval, junkets, known as gaming promoters, were allowed to lend money. However, after further negotiations occurred, the provision that was approved was removed from the law. 

On top of that, the concessionaires are obligated to comply with the public interest, since if they don’t do that, the Chief Executive might disqualify them from the program. However, it isn’t specified what was considered public interest. 

All concessionaires are obligated to set up a credit risk regime and credit record system, along with a smooth mechanism that will handle all customer complaints. If they fail to do that, they will be obligated to pay penalties, which were increased by the new law. They also aren’t allowed to transfer their credit eligibility to another person. The prescribed fines are between MOP$2 million and MOP$5 million.

If a junket fails to comply with the law, their penalty will be between MOP$600,000 and MOP$1.5 million.

Lei Wai Nong, the city’s Secretary for Economy and Finance, said: “The law has stipulated that when the grantee company is borrowing money, they have to make a risk assessment and regulate the management of this, as well as record the information, which is regularly supervised by the DICJ.”

Impact on junkets:

Macau junkets think that the new law will greatly affect their operations in the city. As Inside Asian Gaming reports, they asked one of the junkets’ representatives about it, and they claimed: “If a new client wants to borrow, we (gaming junkets) can only refer it to the grantee company, but the grantee company needs to re-approve the client, and this may take some time. This will undermine the need for gaming junkets. If the customer feels that the concessionaire can lend, why would he or she need to go to a gaming junket?”

However, according to GGRAsia, all credits already issued by the junkets and have already been extended will continue to be valid.