{"id":17084,"date":"2021-04-21T16:26:48","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T16:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=17084"},"modified":"2026-04-23T20:11:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:11:39","slug":"report-suggests-macau-consider-online-gambling-to-recover-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/report-suggests-macau-consider-online-gambling-to-recover-from-covid-19","title":{"rendered":"Report suggests Macau consider online gambling to recover from Covid-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Analysts say the recovery of Macau&#8217;s tourism sector may take longer than expected and that the city should consider turning to technology and online gambling to maintain revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Macau.- Although\u00a0<strong>Macau hopes for some improvement<\/strong>\u00a0in tourism and gaming\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-occupancy-rate-could-reach-80-during-labour-day-break\">during the Labour Day holiday<\/a>, analysts suggest the city should act to lessen its dependence on the tourism sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new report entitled &#8220;The economic impact of a global pandemic on the tourism economy:\u00a0<strong>the case of COVID-19 and Macao\u2019s destination- and gambling-dependent economy<\/strong>&#8221; suggest that state casino operators should turn to online gambling and technology to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The report by Weng Marc Lim (Swinburne University of Technology, Malaysia) and Wai-Ming To (School of Business, Macao Polytechnic Institute) suggests <strong>casino operators should &#8220;leverage on the technological advances<\/strong>\u00a0brought by the Industrial Revolution 4.0, such as virtual reality, to deliver a revamped online gambling experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They state that online gambling combined with virtual reality could be effective to<strong>\u00a0curb gambling addiction<\/strong>\u00a0and could boost casino operators&#8217; revenue amid uncertainty about <strong>possible new Covid-19 waves<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of\u00a0<strong>Macau\u2019s annual casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) comes from Hong Kong and mainland Chinese tourists<\/strong>\u00a0and the Covid-19 pandemic has heavily impacted the industry due to the lack of visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Another recent paper <\/strong>proposed that Macau add <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/macau-to-reconsider-citys-gaming-licence-criteria\">requirements to its gaming licences criteria<\/a> to require operators to help the diversification of Macau\u2019s economy.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Analysts say the recovery of Macau&#8217;s tourism sector may take longer than expected and that the city should consider turning to technology and online gambling to maintain revenue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17085,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Analysts suggest Macau should pivot to online gambling and virtual reality (VR) to diversify its economy and mitigate dependence on tourism, which faces a prolonged recovery. This strategic shift could boost casino operators' revenue and potentially address gambling addiction, alongside proposals for gaming license criteria to mandate economic diversification.","focusai_entities":"Weng Marc Lim, Wai-Ming To, Swinburne University of Technology, Macao Polytechnic Institute","focusai_location":"Macau, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (0.9), product_ux (0.8), tech_data (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Licensing Framework Evolution","query":"What specific amendments to Macau's existing B2B\/B2C licensing and regulatory compliance frameworks would be necessary to facilitate the introduction of online gambling and virtual reality gaming verticals, particularly concerning cross-border player access and responsible gambling mandates?"},{"label":"Economic Diversification Impact","query":"Beyond GGR, what are the projected economic diversification impacts and capital investment requirements for Macau's economy if casino operators are mandated to integrate online and VR gambling technologies?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16338,158],"tags":[23906,757,4138],"class_list":["post-17084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-east-asia-news","category-slider-home","tag-macau-casinos","tag-online-casino","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17104,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17084\/revisions\/17104"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}