Junkets only allowed giving credit to gamblers under contract with concessionaires

The gaming promoters, also called “junkets,” will only be able to grant credit to gamblers to play in the local casinos if such promoters have a formal contract with the concessionaire allowing such an activity, as stated by a new law proposal.

This is the most relevant change within the proposal, discussion of which has concluded in the Executive Council (ExCo), with the proposal now to be sent to the Legislative Assembly (AL) to be addressed by lawmakers, the ExCo announced last Friday during a press conference.

The bill also includes several changes and updates to the current regime, namely correcting the designations and status of the concessionaires according to the current situation in which there are six formal concessions and no sub-concessions (as before), a situation that has not been reflected in the law regulating the credit for casino games.

Some new changes are also proposed to the sanction’s regime of the new law for the cases in which any of the operators fail to comply with the rules. However, for the time being, the government does not wish to disclose the details of the penalties and sanctions to be applied, leaving such debate to the legislators.

At the same press conference, the Secretary for Administration and Justice and spokesperson of the ExCo, André Cheong, also said that the government plans to present an amendment to the current law on illegal gambling activities this year.

Questioned as to whether these amendments are related to the cases recently tried at the local courts involving two of the most prominent junket companies (Suncity Group and Tak Chun Group), Cheong said that these cases were not relevant to the law amendment that was already planned to take place.