Analysts say illegal phone bets could rise as gamblers blocked from travelling to Macau from mainland China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Macau.- Analysts have warned that the decline in gamblers being allowed to travel to Macau as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak could lead to a major rise in the number of illegal phone bets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven though it is illegal, I expect to see an increase in phone betting in casinos\u201d, said the founder of gaming regulation consultancy, Newpage Consulting, told news agency Lusa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The analyst said he believes phone betting will increase as a result of China’s decision to ban travel visas for people looking to travel from the mainland to Macau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macau’s economy relies heavily on the gaming industry, which is fuelled by visitors from mainland China. Last year, for example, more than 27 million visited the SAR from mainland China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But visitor arrivals during \u201cGolden Week\u201d were down 76.5 percent year-on-year, the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) revealed today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China has raised the number of Coronavirus-related deaths to 170 with more than 7,700 infected by the pneumonia virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government of Macau has extended the Chinese New Year holidays to until Friday for public sector workers, a measure that has also been adopted by several private companies, in a bid to prevent the virus from spreading further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Analysts say illegal phone bets could rise as gamblers blocked from travelling to Macau from mainland China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3007,"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 predict a significant increase in illegal phone betting due to travel restrictions from mainland China to Macau, stemming from the Coronavirus outbreak. This development poses a substantial threat to Macau's gaming industry, which is heavily reliant on mainland Chinese visitors, as evidenced by a 76.5% decline in Golden Week arrivals.","focusai_entities":"Newpage Consulting, Macao Government Tourism Office","focusai_location":"Macau, China","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (0.85), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.75), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Macau GGR Impact?","query":"What are the projected GGR impacts for Macau's integrated resorts, considering the extended travel restrictions and the anticipated expansion of illegal phone betting operations?"},{"label":"Regulatory Response?","query":"How might Macau's regulatory and enforcement bodies adapt their governance frameworks to effectively counter the predicted surge in illegal phone betting activities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,28,16338],"tags":[234,29,7299,257],"class_list":["post-3005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-casino-news","category-east-asia-news","tag-betting","tag-casino","tag-coronavirus","tag-macau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3005"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3022,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3005\/revisions\/3022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}