Government lays out guidelines to curb illicit gaming ads

Local authorities have established a set of specific guidelines for the advertising sector in a bid to clarify a law which governs advertising activities in the city. The establishment of these guidelines follows an intensified campaign from local authorities last year to restrict the illegal promotion of the gaming industry. Advertisers previously criticized this crackdown as too “heavy-handed,” claiming that it might dampen their business operations.
During a presentation held yesterday morning, Tai Kin Ip, sub-director of Macau Economic Services (MES), revealed that a heightened crackdown on illegal gaming advertising was due to the surging number of incidents involving misleading ads that subtly encourage gambling activities.
According to the official, around 300 advertisements out of the total 316 illegal cases discovered to date were officially unauthorized by the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM), which is the body responsible for issuing permits to advertising agents in order to publicize the ads. Nonetheless, Leng Sai Vai, the head of an association of automobile traders and workers, who was also among those who attended the presentation, raised concerns that some of the association’s members faced prosecution despite having been granted permission to display advertising by IACM. “Suddenly many car owners who face possible prosecution have been summoned to the Economic Services office for written statements and have become suspects. Who set the standards? IACM, MES or any other cooperative department?” asked Leng. “[Public advertising is] theoretically legal after IACM has approved the request, yet [MES] has said otherwise. Do we have not only one country with two systems, but also one government with two systems?”
This question revealed a cross-­departmental overlap. Yet, MES head denied this overlap, asserting that some of the advertisements submitted for official scrutiny were “deceptive enough to have cheated the IACM authorities for the go-ahead.” In response to the allegation of double-standards, he explained that the MES department also weighed in on IACM’s scrutiny by offering opinions when needed.
Criticisms of the government’s bureaucratic handling of applications were a key theme of the presentation’s question and answer session. Participants in the discussion asserted the belief that the failure of authorities to respond to their public advertisement requests in a timely manner was their major concern. However, IACM stressed that it typically took 15 working days to finish the screening process, taking into account the time needed to gather opinions from other departments.
Multiple examples presented at the talk showed that nowadays, gambling house operators tend to bypass regulations by solely having their company name and a contact number printed on their graphic advertisements. All of this, however, still appears suggestive, according to officials. Online gaming websites might appear as travel sites in disguise, being only available to foreigners, and eschew the official clampdown. Staff reporter