Macao's six gaming concessionaires and sub-concessionaires Wednesday sat face-to-face for the first time to discuss gaming market regulations in a special meeting initiated by the
Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) government.
High level representatives of the six gaming operators, including local gaming magnate Stanley Ho and Las Vegas Sands' Asian Region President Steven Weaver, attended the meeting with top government officials.
The meeting was originally aimed to talk about future development of the industry as the SAR government has decided to bar any new comer to enter the city's gaming sector.
But it turned out that the representatives mainly focused on issues concerning junket commissions and gaming table number, according to Tam Pak Yuen, secretary for economy and finance of the SAR government, who also attended the meeting.
Tam said that most of the representatives agreed at the meeting that the commission should have a lower maximum rate than the current market level, while opinions differed when it came to the number of gaming tables allowed for each concessionaire.
"The government takes the responsibility to regulate the gaming industry, ensuring its healthy and sustainable development, and now it is time to take a more active step and provide a platform for the operators to exchange their opinions," he added.
Last month, SAR Chief Executive Ho Hau Wah revealed the government's decision to freeze the development of new casino projects and maintain the current industry scale, when addressing questions from local lawmakers at the SAR's Legislative Assembly.
The decision was soon welcomed by three out of the six gaming operators, including Stanley Ho's SJM, Melco International, of which his son Lawrence Ho is chairman, and Wynn
Macao from Las Vegas.
"The only way to control this crazy cutthroat competition is to control two things, the number of (gaming) tables for each licensee and the commission rate," said Stanley Ho after Wednesday's meeting.
Casinos in
Macao usually pay a percentage of their winnings in the VIP gaming rooms to the junket operators who provide high-roller players. Last year the VIP market contributed more than 67 percent of the total games of fortune revenue, according to figures from the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau.
Melco Entertainment (Macao) Limited's (MPEL) Crown
Macau casino resort has shaken up the market this year, as it increased its maximum junket commission to 1.35 percent, reportedly one of the highest rates in the local market. The deal took Crown from a total market share of 4.9 percent in July last year to what company executives declared Macao's biggest VIP house in February this year with a 21 percent share of the high-rollers market.
Ho said he proposed at the meeting that maximum commission rate and gaming table number for each concessionaire or sub-concessionaire be limited at 1.25 percent and 1,000 respectively.
But Ho's proposal was not welcomed by all the other operators, as he said that the Las Vegas Sands, the representative of which disagreed with Ho on most of the issues brought up at the meeting, has tried before to jack the commission up to 1.5 percent, which he described as "nonsense".
Las Vegas Sands has invested heavily in Macao's gaming market and built the Venetian Macao, which housed the largest casino in the world. Stephen Weaver, representing Sands at the meeting, argued that table number and commission rate should be decided by the market.
"It isn't the table that attracts players. One could build a room and put in 1,000 tables, but unless there is a reason for people to visit there, the table would be unused," he said, adding that if an operator does not have an attractive casino resort, or it is in a wrong place, you also need to pay higher commission.
According to the
Macao Business monthly share report, SJM still leads with 28 percent of gaming market share by the end of March this year, following by Sands, which took up 20 percent.
But Weaver noted with confidence that for those who build casinos which are just casinos, "I don't believe that meets the objective of
Macao as a society."
"What we think
Macao is a society and the government's intention of opening up the industry was to bring in the kinds of resorts that would attract new tourism traffic, business traffic, people who want to come for shopping, entertainment and so on."
Source:Xinhua
