Negligible effect for proxy betting ban, say analysts

A new law forbidding the casting of proxy bets within Macau’s casinos will have a negligible impact on overall casino performance, local gaming analysts have claimed.

The city’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) began enforcing the law – which demands any person placing a bet in a casino to be physically on the premises – last month, after it was enacted by the government of the Macau SAR.

Whilst new regulation might seem the last thing that the city’s struggling casino industry requires, sector observers have claimed that as proxy-betters only constitute a small cross-section of the VIP player base – around five per cent – and would consequently not drastically alter market paradigms.

“The reason for the ban has been to tighten something that has been a bit of a grey area in the past,” iGamix analyst Ben Less told the Macau Daily Times. “[But] the impact will be minimal since most of this activity has already been moved offshore to other areas such as the Philippines and Cambodia.”

VIP GGR in Macau totalled just over E14bn last year. With this in mind, the new law could constitute a revenue loss somewhere in the region of E700m.