In his first policy address to the Macau Legislative Assembly, Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng announced that sweeping changes to the gaming regulatory regime would be instituted in the SAR.
Among those changes is the scrapping of subconcessions, always a particularly clumsy part of Macau gaming regulations. Ho said the six operators would all hold concessions (without guaranteeing renewal of any of the concessions) and additional concessions could be added.
“We’ll decide the exact number of gaming concessions,” said Ho in a press conference following the policy address. “The situation of adding three more concessions to become six concessions, or adding six concessions to become 12, will no longer happen in the future. Otherwise it will equate to the full liberalization of gaming. It’s not our direction.”
Ho backed off what he considered to be a right number of concessions, saying the government would be guided by the public’s advice.
“We’ll start the public consultation on the amendment of gaming regulations within this year, hopefully it will not be impacted by the epidemic,” he said.
The subconcessions were initially created to mitigate a feud between two ex-partners, Las Vegas Sands and Galaxy Entertainment. LV Sands was granted the concession and Galaxy the subconcession. Then two other concession-holders, SJM and Wynn Resorts, wanted the same right to grant subconcessions, which was approved. SJM granted a subconcession to MGM Resorts, with SJM principal Stanley Ho’s daughter Pansy Ho as a 50 percent partner. Wynn sold its subconcession to Melco Crown, a partnership between Stanley Ho’s son Lawrence and Crown Resorts, at the time controlled by James Packer.
Non-gaming amenities and corporate social responsibility (CSR) will continue to be a large part of the consideration to either renew a concession or grant a new one, according to Ho.
“The previous mid-term review had mentioned about gaming operators’ CSR, as well as what kind of responsibilities and non-gaming elements there should be,” he said. “I hope the public can give more opinions and we’ll write them into the draft of the amendment of the law, and have discussions in the Legislative Assembly.”
With the current Covid-19 situation, Macau casinos have reopened, but the borders are closed to most visitors. Ho said he’s confident that the casinos will survive and dismissed any notion of lowering gaming taxes as a result.
