Macau’s Officials Come Together With The Casino Bosses

Illegal operation and the black market has become a greater deal since the introduction of the cryptocurrencies to the digital world. Countries have been struggling with cutting out this problem, which sometimes costs a lot. Macau, which is one of the capitals of the casinos, gambling as well as digital currency usage, has come up with some new measures in order to cease the problem.

Recently officials of Macau have arranged the meeting with the mass casino owners and CEOs. The discussion was held regarding the cooperation of the officials and casinos. The question has been raised concerning the ways the industry might give further help in tackling the problem of unlicensed money chargers seeking to operate illegally in or around the city’s variety of casinos. It is not the first time official trying to figure out the possible way to solve the problem of illicit chargers. They have conducted several actions to counter such trades. In March of 2019, it emerged that the industry had pledged to support the authorities in countermeasures.

The Topic Of Discussion

It was one of the topics in a general discussion during the meeting last Friday – held between management from the six gaming operators and officials from, respectively, the Judiciary Police, the casino regulator the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, and the Fire Services Bureau – on how to maintain and if necessary improve, order and security in the proximity of the city’s casinos.

The Macau authorities had seen a “deterrent effect” on rogue money changers by adding those suspected of involvement or detained for such activities to a list of people banned from entering local gaming venues, said the Judiciary Police in a statement following the gathering. The police had also conducted a greater number of spot checks in recent times at the city’s casino properties in order to combat another gaming-related social crime: loan-sharking, the action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.

Further comments made by Judiciary Police were that they would seek to apply further “effective measures” together with the local gaming regulator in order to curb illicit trading and changing of cash. What usually happens is that Macau’s casino bets are denominated in Hong Kong dollars, and often the assets of the city’s mainland Chinese players are denominated in Chinese yuan. Despite there is a certain official limit put on the withdrawal and denomination of money in Chinese currency, there often are various attempts to somehow overcome the rules and denominate money illegally.

The statements also included the information regarding an increased yer to year statistics of the gambling-related crimes. It was stated that the increase has been observed within the first ten months of the year. The gambling-related crimes include “usury” or loan-sharking, as well as often unlawful detention of gamblers.

Gaming-Related Crimes

Although the Judicial Police has revealed that the number of gaming-related crimes has increased, specific numbers have not been mentioned yet. Though, the months from January to October have been hard in these terms.

Macau’s police bodies, the Judiciary Police and the Public Security Police – recorded in aggregate 169 cases of alleged unlawful detention relating to gaming during the first half of this year, up 17.4 % on the same period last year. For the first half of this year, alleged gaming-related loan-sharking – also known as usury – totaled 295 cases, representing a 16.1 % increase year-on-year, according to official figures released previously.

On Sunday one more statement has been made by the Judiciary Police, noting that the gaming-related thefts inside casinos had been decreasing, though that kind of crimes does increase only during the extended public holidays period. Two more subjects that are the reason for concern, is the theft of the chips, that are left on the tabled inattentively, as well as the theft of personal belongings in the casinos. Those crimes were usually committed during the busy days. Everything this can be an indicator of the failure of the security and privacy of the costumers, which in the end determined the quality of the service.

Comin out of the current case and the frequent occasions of the gaming-related crimes, that should be unprecedented, the meeting that was held on Friday should become a regular thing to do among the police bodies and the casino authorities. Hopefully, the meetings of this kind will decrease the number of crimes and will assist in coming up with the right strategies in order to cease the existing problem.