Starting on January 1, 2023 the Macau government will allow casino operators to run gambling rooms and issue chips for foreigners only, Executive Council spokesman Andre Cheong Weng Chon announced yesterday.
Cheong, the government's policy secretary for administration and justice, said the measure was an incentive for gaming operators to attract foreign gamblers.
The Executive Council is the government's top advisory body. The council ended yesterday its review of the government's administrative regulation (by-law) on the matter.
Cheong said that from January 1, 2023 the chief executive can exempt operators from paying a levy of up to 5 percent of their gross gaming revenue generated by gaming rooms for foreign nationals.
Cheong reaffirmed that the government's direct gaming tax amounting to 35 percent of gaming operators' gross gaming revenue (GGR) and an additional levy of five percent of their GGR for a range a public causes such as culture, social welfare and education, will remain unchanged. However, the new administrative regulation allows the chief executive to lower or waive gaming operators' five-percent levy as an incentive for attracting more foreign visitors to Macau.
Unlike bills proposed by the government, administrative regulations do not need to be passed by the legislature to take legal effect.
Cheong, who also heads the government's gaming bidding committee which recently granted new concessions to Macau's six incumbent gaming operators, said that compatriots from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong will be barred from gambling in rooms reserved for foreign nationals, nor will they be allowed for place bets with chips for foreigners. However, he stressed that foreigners can gamble in all gambling venues.
Legal sources told The Macau Post Daily last night that it is the first time that Macau's gaming regulations will differentiate between gamblers from foreign countries and those from China (mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan).
Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng announced earlier this year that the government would offer casino operators fiscal incentives for drawing more foreign gamblers to Macau.
Compatriots, i.e., mainlanders, Hongkongers and Taiwanese, accounted for about 90 percent of Macau's visitor arrivals even before the COVID-19 pandemic began to hit Macau in early 2020.
According to the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), as of the end of the third quarter, the number of casinos owned by Macau's six rival operators stood at 37 - 20 owned by SJM, five by Sands, four each by Galaxy and Melco Crown, and two each by Wynn Resorts and MGM Grand Paradise.
