DICJ Director discusses illegal online gambling

The director of Macau’s DICJ discussed illegal online gambling operations and said that it’s hard for authorities to fight it.

Macau.- Paulo Martins Chan, director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), talked about the difficulties that authorities in Macau face when having to eradicate illegal online gambling operations.

At the opening ceremony for the 2019 MGS Entertainment Show, Chan said that it’s difficult for authorities to completely eradicate illegal gambling as the servers are outside city jurisdictions and they target Mainland China gamblers, Macau Business reported.

Chan said that they can do propaganda to raise awareness and inform what things are illegal. “We continue to do a lot of awareness work, sending phone messages, setting billboards, to fight online gaming. It has a great impact on Macau’s image and in many times involves fraud,” he said.

In order to prevent and fight illegal online gambling and to safeguard the city’s tourism image, as well as residents’ interests, the DICJ has put in place a number of resources, including publicity and promotion on different platforms, said Chan.

VIP segment loses ground in Macau

The VIP segment in Macau has traditionally driven finances in the Chinese region. However, as Bernstein analysts forecast, the vertical will drop to be 34% of the area’s GGR by 2022.

While the VIP segment was 70% of GGR in 2011, it has already dropped to 41% in 2018.

“VIP every month/ quarter is oftentimes dependent on the behaviour and luck of a relatively small number of high rollers,” Bernstein assessed. “It’s driven much more by liquidity in China (i.e., flow of credit) and liquidity in Macau (in the junket system).”