In an interesting move by Macau’s Executive Council, a new measure was made in the Special Administrative Region of China. According to the gambling software solutions, casinos will be able to open Foreigners-Only Rooms in Macau. The reason for introducing these foreigners-only room is to help boost the local tourism industry.
The announcement by the Macau government was made last week and the measure will begin on January 1, 2023. According to Executive Council spokesman, Andre Cheong Weng Chon, the measure is an incentive for casinos to attract foreign players. Furthermore, the decision for these foreigners-only rooms was made as a result of their review of the government’s administrative regulation.
These new measures will take effect to coincide with the new gaming concessions go into effect. In addition, they will be subject to an administrative regulation which when available will be in Macau’s Official Gazette.
Foreigners-Only Rooms in Macau: A Way to Attract Foreign Gamblers
While no casino in Macau has yet made an announcement for opening such rooms, they do hold certain advantages. This is because it gives them a waiver on the current 5% additional tax for revenue coming from foreign players.
One reason for the waiver is to offset the cost of attracting foreign gamblers to Macau. This is because it cost a lot of capital to advertise abroad to attract foreign gamblers. Of course, foreigners will be able to gamble in the rest of the casino. However, the point of these areas is for casinos to bring their own clients, through offices set up outside Macau.
In a way, foreigners-only areas will be a VIP room to offset the loss from closing down junket operations.
These rooms will be only for players that hold a passport from outside Chinese regions and jurisdictions. Therefore, players from Macau, Hong Kong and Mainland Chine will not be able to enter these rooms. On an interesting note, despite the country not falling under Chinese administration, Taiwanese gamblers will be on the exclusion list.
Furthermore, the foreigners-only rooms will have special casino chips to better track revenue coming from foreign players.
According to Bookie pay per head analysts, in 2019, foreign gamblers only made up 3.58% of the total Casino GGR. Since then, the numbers are even lower due to the pandemic. Chon said that Macau has been relying too much on revenue from China for its economy. Thus, he hopes that these foreigners-only rooms will help to offset that.
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