Kapok | Hooked on junkets

Eric Sautedé

By mid-2015, gambling-related crimes had already gone up by more than a third, with loan sharking cases and unlawful detentions being of particular concern. This trend was just confirmed by Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak during a media briefing held on December 2nd: for the first nine months of 2015, the overall increase in gambling-related crimes stabilized at 34% (1,118 cases in total), with loan-sharking offences increasing by 40% year-on-year and unlawful detentions by a staggering 112.5%! Mr Wong also previously insisted on a turning point in March this year, with no further explanations being given.
In fact, quite the contrary: the Secretary was adamant in downplaying the significance of this highly noticeable jump. For him, in official speak, the rise was not to be attributed to the “adjustment in the gaming industry” — even though many junket venues are shutting down and all analysts seem to concur that credit lines have been crunched. Furthermore, he insisted on the fact that most of the victims and suspects of these crimes were “non-residents” and that these offences had no spillover effects on the rest of the community, as demonstrated by a slight decrease of the overall number of crimes over the first nine months of the year. To support Mr Wong’s claim, I would even add that gambling-related crimes appear rather limited in scope, representing a mere 11% of the total number of crimes (10,347 over the period), whereas revenues attributed to “gaming” amounted to 85%! Still, there was and there will continue to be an upsurge…
Ultimately, what I find really suspicious are these efforts at attenuating the meaning of everything. This of course goes beyond Macao and local politics: most modern politicians tend to “shelter” public opinions just like a mother or father protects her or his own children from hearing too blunt a disturbing reality and eventually one always benefits from showing that he or she is fully in control of the inner workings of any situation. No wonder then that Mr Wong would remark that the Dore case — theft and default in repayment put together — exclusively resulted from the shortcomings of the gambling promoter itself, and had therefore nothing to do with the ailing situation of the gambling industry. Yet, just like it is pure hypocrisy and manipulation to use the palatable and entertainment-minded word “gaming” (博彩 bocai or even 玩樂 wanle) instead of the highly hazardous and irrational term “gambling” (赌博 dubo), “adjustment” actually means a complete revamping under duress of the industry that has made Macao a “success” over the past decade. Article 118 of the Macao Basic Law has not changed, but drawing policies that will promote “tourism and recreation” in line with Macao’s interests has taken a whole new meaning.
Contrary to what some lawyers and foreign observers profess, it is highly debatable to univocally state that “the territory would not have achieved what it did if the [gambling] industry had been over-regulated.” First, because remaking history with “if” is pointless. Second, because one could infer that whatever the legal framework, investors would still have been tempted by the proximity of such a huge market, especially in a monopolistic position and with a cultural background somehow favoring games of luck. Third, because a lot of rich Chinese millionaires, whatever the origin of their wealth, saw Macao has a way out and on top of that credit did not have to be guarantied by the casinos themselves. In short, Macao was bound to be a magnet.
Actually, I would argue quite the opposite: lax regulation of THE industry delayed necessary adjustments and long term vision — money was simply too easy to make — and we are finally witnessing the beginning of the unraveling of the promise made back in 1993 when the Basic Law was passed. Before Dore, there was Huang Shan in May 2014, with some HKD10 billion vanishing in smoke, so clearly the “adjustment period” is closely related to the “new normal”, for better and for worse.