Macau might open the discussion on online gambling once again

Macau can be considered as the Asian capital of gambling. It is one of the most popular places to visit in China as well. Macau is the only place in China where gambling is permitted and thus it should not be surprising that all people who want to spend some quality time via gambling, head to Macau straight forward.

The Capital of gambling in China has experienced certain hardcore changes due to the ongoing situation in China regarding the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus. While China has suffered the outcome of the spread of the virus, Macau is not an exception. The situation in China became especially severe by the middle of January. This was the period of the massive outbreak of the virus and thus, all of the facilities in the country were restricted for the operation.

Macau was one of the cities to take the hit. The gambling capital generates over 80% of revenue through the casino and gambling facilities. This means that once the gambling venue and casinos are affected the whole economy of Macau is affected as well. People in Macau are highly dependent on the Gambling sector. The majority of the population of Macau is employed within the gambling sector.

Massive Shut Down

The hit was not only for the gamblers, who used to love to visit the casino and enjoy the entertainment, but also the whole stuff, the working force of the city. The city was not shut down for quite some time, as still was the hope of recovery. Though, once the situation was slightly out of the control and the massive outbreak began in the whole territory of the country, Macau’s officials took the decision to close the casino and all major venues functioning within the city.

The decision was shocking for all representatives of the sector. Though, it was very rational at that point, as the city had already experienced a massive decline in the revenue by the middle of February. By that period the loss was already more than $300 million, while it was foreseen to have at least $700 million growth by that time.

Macau’s authorities took the decision to shut down all of the active casinos in order to prevent the outbreak of the virus. The decision was made after the most active period, supposedly most active period, the Chinese New Year failed, due to people simply were afraid to leave their houses and to attend some gathering places.

After all 42 casinos were shut down initially for a two week period, the city closed the borders and all people including the working force of the city were isolated. The revenue of Macau fell even more during this period of time. The only case of closing casinos in Macau was back in 2018 when the Typhoon Mangkhut hit the city. The casinos were shut for 33 hours back then. The closure of Macau casinos for 15 days was the longest ever shut down ever since 1999.

The closure of the major sector for the revenue is always very hard to take and even harder to recover from. The loss of money is one thing and the recovery of the staff and the whole system is another. In this case, the gambling capital of China has to figure out further steps very soon.

New initiative

While gambling is overall permitted in Macau, online gambling is not a topic of discussion in the city, due to the strict existing regulation. The topic regarding the permission of online gambling has become a popular topic of discussion once again after the closure of the casino due to the extensive loss of the revenue.

While the authorities are still very against permitting online gambling, according to the experts, VIP casino games online can be a total solution for the existing problem and will contribute the most to the recovery of the city and to the budget. The majority of the experts agree on the part of reviewing online gambling as an option.

Online gambling is one of the most popular gambling activities all over the world. Online gambling is one of the most lucrative gambling-related activities as well. World’s leading developers are working on online games in order to attract more players and get them engaged in the gambling activity. Billions of dollars are being spent on online gambling activities throughout the whole world.

Online gambling could have been a really good solution for the current situation in Macau. This could bring back millions of dollars to the casinos and to the city overall. While the casinos might not have won a lot from online gambling, the overall revenue of the state would increase drastically.

The authorities remain reluctant regarding the current topic. This is mainly due to the further increase in problem gambling among citizens. Or it might also be due to the taxes the casinos are paying for the government.

In the case of online gambling, the customers would retain from visiting brick and mortar casinos and address online casinos instead, this can very much decrease the overall interest in the land-based casinos and thus might decline the interest and the revenue of the land-based casinos.

While it can be beneficial for the state and the city it is definitely going to affect the casinos overall, which should not be a very desirable move for the casino operators.

To conclude, according to many international experts the online casino popularisation and permission would have positively affected Macau’s economy for now. Instead of millions of losses at the moment of shut down the casino, the revenue could have been generated from the online casino and the taxes for the online casino operators within the country.