Gaming | Growth swings astonish podcasters

Sean O’Reilly and Vincent Shen of financial services analyst Motley Fool recently dedicated a segment of their “Industry Focus: Consumer Goods” podcast to a discussion of Macau’s gaming growth and slowdown, as well as the upcoming openings of new resorts by MGM, Sands China and Wynn Resorts.
The two admitted that they had not visited Macau but compared it to Las Vegas, and were astonished at the extent of the gaming slump, which they equated to more than a year of gaming revenue in Vegas.
“[In 2013, gross gaming revenue] peaked at about USD45 billion, and in 2015 it’s fallen back down to about USD29 billion,” said Motley Fool’s Shen. “So you can see how significant that is. The amount that they’ve lost in terms of gaming revenue in the last two years is far more than Vegas sees in an entire year.”
The duo also shared their fascination with what they see as the Central Government’s deliberate decision to transform the MSAR into a “big gaming mecca.”
“It’s always been interesting to me [to see] how planned it was, and how the purpose was clearly to be this enormous mecca,” said O’Reilly during the podcast, in contrast to “how Vegas was this, like, desert stopover thing that just popped up after World War II.”
O’Reilly and Shen also noted the “huge” new luxury resorts that will open in Macau, some of which are from the biggest players in the MSAR’s gaming sector.  DB

PJ investigation into pawnshops deposits

The Judiciary Police (PJ) has received 16 reports from residents who claim to have been cheated by pawnbrokers. Now the police are investigating some HKD35 million of alleged embezzled deposits, after pawnshop owners failed to pay due interest to investors.
TDM reported that, according to complaints filed last week, in 2007 the victims started depositing large sums of money in four pawnshops in the ZAPE area. In return they were promised interest rates that could be up to 15 percent.
The Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak, commented on these illegal deposits: “This sort of situation is bound to happen and it could happen at any time. As such, our tackling mechanism will always lag behind. What we have to do is to react quickly and make sure to be up to date,” he said.
The situation resembles the investments made by residents in the junket operator Dore, in return for high interest rates. After an internal theft, the Dore group was unable to return the illegal deposits.