In this week’s cover story, we introduce readers to NagaWorld, a casino complex in Cambodia that is booming thanks to Chinese gamblers. And it’s not the only one; since casino gambling is illegal in mainland China, casino developments in a number of China’s border countries are all vying for Chinese clientele.
Covid-19 has caused many brick-and-mortar casinos to temporarily close, but a few countries, like the Philippines, have also seen a rapid expansion in offshore gaming operators running online gaming services and live streaming casinos catering to Chinese players. Some are set to resume partial operations as early as this month according to announcements by Philippines gaming authority PAGCOR.
In the Big Picture, we show where Chinese citizens go to gamble, and which casinos are the biggest players in the industry.
Where Chinese Players Go to Gamble
Several Asian countries have legalized gambling in the past ten to twenty years, sometimes after decades or centuries of gambling bans. Singapore lifted its 40-year gambling ban in 2006, and two casinos opened in 2010. Japan legalized casino gambling several years ago, but casinos have yet to open in the country.
Other countries have legalized gambling only for foreign passport holders. North Korea, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, for example, all forbid gambling by their own citizens, but allow casinos to service foreigners. For countries like Myanmar, China represents the country’s largest source of foreign visitors.
Many of these casino developments aim to specifically attract Chinese gamblers by offering Chinese refreshments, payment systems, and service by Mandarin-speaking Chinese staff. In the Philippines for example, over 138,000 foreign workers, likely mostly Chinese, were employed by offshore gaming operators in 2019, according to estimates by the Philippines Department of Labor and Bureau of Immigration.
Attracting gamblers while limiting organized crime, however, is difficult. In Australia, for instance, Crown Casinos became tied up with Chinese junket operators and triad gangs as they plotted to circumvent Chinese laws to recruit high-rollers from China to spend billions at their Melbourne and Perth casinos.
And perhaps most notoriously, Laos is home to a large, glitzy casino built by the Hong-Kong registered Kings Romans Group, which signed a 99-year lease in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone in 2007. The casino is a small hub for Chinese gamblers, and reportedly known for money laundering, drug and human trafficking, weapons smuggling, and rare species trade. It was subject to U.S. sanctions in 2018 for drug smuggling.
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Online gambling businesses are also legal and prevalent in some of these countries. Last year, however, China urged several countries to ban online gambling in an effort to curb money flowing out of the country illegally as well as the crime and social problems often associated with gambling. Cambodia complied, resulting in an exodus of thousands of Chinese nationals who worked for online gambling operators. The Philippines, on the other hand, refused an outright ban, and instead issued a moratorium on new licenses for online gambling firms.
Top Casino Operators Worldwide
For the world’s top casino operators, facilities in Asia, particularly in Macau, are a must. Macau’s GDP per capita is among the highest in the world because of how much revenue its casinos bring in compared to its population size. The city has 41 casinos that collectively brought in more than $38 billion last year, according to government statistics. Six of the top eleven operators have casinos in Macau.
According to data from H2 Gambling Capital, China ranks #1 among Asian countries in gambling wins — the amount the house wins, that is — largely thanks to Macau. Almost 90 percent of the nearly 40 million visitors to Macau in 2019 were from mainland China or Hong Kong, according to government statistics.
The world’s top casino operator by revenue is Las Vegas Sands, famous for The Venetian and The Palazzo casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. The Venetian’s sister casino, the Venetian Macao, on Macau’s Cotai Strip, is among the world’s largest buildings at over 538,000 square feet (50,000 square meters). Las Vegas Sands also operates one of the only two casinos in Singapore, Marina Bay Sands. Las Vegas Sands’ casinos in Macau and Singapore together brought in revenues of more than $9.1 billion, according to their 2019 annual report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Emma Bingham is a Boston-based editor for The Wire. Previously, she was editor in chief of The Tech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. @emmapbingham
Kara Greenberg is an editor at The Wire. @karagreenberg_