A gambler a day on wrong end of debt-recovery as high-rollers are cut off from mainland funds
RAQUEL CARVALHOraquel.carvalho@scmp.com
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 30 August, 2015, 1:24am
UPDATED : Sunday, 30 August, 2015, 1:29am
Casinos and hotels in Cotai, Macau.Photo: Dickson Lee
Beijing's crackdown on underground banking and its ongoing anti-corruption drive have sparked a dramatic rise in the number of gamblers being forcibly detained to recover debts they have run up in Macau casinos.
In the first six months of this year the number of reported illegal detentions in the world's biggest gaming destination more than doubled that of the same period in 2014.
According to figures from the Macau government, 170 people were held against their will - an average of almost one illegal detention a day. Most of the victims are understood to be from the mainland.
Those figures are probably just the tip of the iceberg, say casino industry watchers. They say the trend is another sign that Macau's VIP junket operators are suffering badly as the high-rolling gamblers they bring to the tables either stay away or visit casinos elsewhere in Asia to avoid falling foul of President Xi Jinping's anti-graft drive.
Macau's Secretary for Security, Wong Sio-chak, said "most of the cases happened inside casinos, which means that these crimes will not influence the stability of Macau society".
Wong added that most of the offenders and victims were not local residents, with most coming from the mainland.
In the first half of the year, loan-sharking cases also jumped to 153 from 110 in the same period last year.
Overall, gaming-related crimes soared 34.5 per cent year-on-year, with 679 cases between January and June.
Professor Spencer Li, a criminologist at the University of Macau, said this trend "might reflect increased control over money transactions from the mainland to Macau".
With gamblers being unable to get larger amounts of cash out of the mainland - or simply having less money to spend due to the economic slowdown - many were now risking their freedom and even their lives if they got into trouble, Li noted.
Junket operators are also willing to take higher risks to make a profit. "They are currently lending money to people who they know probably won't be able to pay it back," he said.
Dozens of VIP tables have been left empty or have closed down over the past months, and revenue generated by some junkets has plunged by more than half this year.
Gaming revenue in Macau fell 34.5 per cent last month over the same month last year. The share of VIP gaming revenue dropped to 55 per cent in the second quarter from around 70 per cent before early last year.
http://m.scmp.com/news/article/1853773/debt-recovery-detentions-rise-one-day-macau-casinos-china-cracks-down-illegal
