Macau police have barred over 2,000 people from entering Macau's casinos, over illegal money exchange activities last year.

Macau gaming industry insiders are wary of the potential criminalization of illicit money exchange in Macau as Macau’s Secretary for Security suggested the possibility of criminalizing such activities around casinos.

In a recent interview with AGB, Jeremy Douglas, Regional Representative at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shed light on the significant findings of a report regarding the pivotal role played by casinos, cryptocurrency, and VIP junkets in fostering underground banking and crime in East and Southeast Asia.

How do punters get their money out of China? With strict capital outflow measures in place, Chinese punters aiming to spend large amounts overseas face a quandary but aren’t limited to illegal options when it comes to how to transfer their funds.

In a recent meeting with Macau gaming operators, the casino regulatory body in Macau, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), urged them to update their monitoring systems on the gaming floor. The aim is to implement 'comprehensive management through technology’.

Macau junkets are facing extinction as crackdowns by authorities leave the industry increasingly disillusioned and market survivors lose hope.

Macau saw a notable uptick in gambling-related crimes in 2023 compared to the previous year, with authorities in the SAR attributing this rise to an influx of tourists and the resurgence of the gambling sector.

A proposal to lower the taxation rate on personal winnings from the lottery or in the casino in the Philippines could fall far short of its goal of helping the disadvantaged. Ben Lee points out how lotteries are commonly known as "a regressive form of tax on the poor", and that the new measures proposed could effectively be "robbing the poor to give to the rich"

A newly released report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sheds light on the alarming role of casinos, junkets, and cryptocurrency in driving the underground banking and money laundering infrastructure in East and Southeast Asia.

The Office of the Secretary for Security of Macau presented statistics indicating that Macau recorded 422 cases of crime related to gaming operations in the first half of 2023.