Rear Window | Junket to junk

Severo Portela

Video footage showing a gamblers’ brawl allegedly in one of the casinos got attention on social media. It seemed to be more a nervous “quid pro quo” than a good old sleazy fight.
Whatever it was, we take this supposedly and undeservingly notorious quarrel at a junket-operated room as a graphic way to highlight the challenges the gaming industry has to overcome in order just to be. Previously, we reflected upon the South China Morning Post’s report of a new kind of insurance policy to cover against kidnappings. Today we recall the findings on illegal activities from the three month long joint operation between the security apparatus of Macau, Hong Kong and Guangdong. Besides drug trafficking and situations of wrongful entry, illegal detention or confinement for bad gaming debts deserved to be underlined in a lively red.
Things are rotting and moving fast. On September 18th, Secretary for Economy and Finance had a meeting with the gaming operators around a set of issues known to guide the mid-term evaluation; topics like economic vitality, job market, social responsibility, on-the-job training, mobility, and international competition. Speaking through the same GIS release, Lionel Leong stressed that the government was willing to improve the legislation to strengthen the regulations of concessionaires and junket operators.
However, probably developments like the Dore Group’s white-collar financial heist – if we may say so – as well as the trial facing the Macau junket operator, Cheung Chi Tai (Neptune Group), in Hong Kong, bring a sense of urgency into the equation, demanding more resolute action to clarify the priorities.
We find that the crux of the case is to tighten junket activities, and that does not exclude reviewing the existing laws. This is not a guessing game much less a devaluation of the rule of law; it is plain common sense to not to bury the problems arising from the realities of the junket business of the day under tomes of laws and regulations.
To speak bluntly, there are indeed issues related to junket activities that clearly overlap with other jurisdictions: the informal remittance of money, the unruly debt collection, and mainly the interference by a second banking layer borrowing from legal banks. Junket financing modus operandi disrupts the system by attaching extortionate interest rates to the food chain of sharking loans.
Not surprisingly, the Secretary for Economy and Finance spoke again a few days later, mostly to underline the importance of these gaming operators: Healthy junket operation is linked to the whole development of the gaming industry.
That is why Lionel Leong is willing to send post-haste a package of internal instructions to the gaming industry – and we underline – to facilitate a move toward sounder laws and regulations.
Perhaps, the same spirit of getting results first in the shaky gambling kingdom of Macau can also be taken by the Economic Services, under Secretary Leong, so as to set internal instructions about advertising casino activities. For all the reasons known, but also for general ones, Macau and the ‘industry’ has to persevere in order to strike a better balance between gaming and non-gaming segments of the Casino Business. This is not the time to wait for new laws and updated regulations. So long consulting, so long time consuming.