Posts

Macau’s obsession with visitor numbers is holding it back

Image
  jul26 Macau’s obsession with visitor numbers is holding it back By Renato Marques, MDT July 13, 2026 0 Renato Marques Macau has become addicted to a number – tourist arrivals. Month after month, headlines celebrate visitor records as if they were a reliable measure of economic health. Policymakers proudly announce millions of arrivals, while businesses eagerly anticipate the next holiday surge. Yet beneath the statistics lies an uncomfortable reality. More visitors do not necessarily translate into greater prosperity. For a city as small and resource-constrained as Macau, pursuing volume is a flawed strategy. Macau cannot win a price-based competition. It also cannot match neighboring destinations in scale, beaches, shopping districts, or natural attractions. Nor should it try. Competing for the largest number of visitors inevitably means competing for the lowest spenders, placing pressure on infrastructure, public transportation, and local communities while delivering diminishi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Macau tops mainland Chinese outbound satisfaction ranking for second year

 jul26 Macau has held on to first place in the China Tourism Academy’s latest rankings of outbound destinations for mainland Chinese tourists, winning particular praise for its “leisure and entertainment” as well as “attractions and accommodation”. The academy’s 2025 Top 10 Destinations for Chinese Outbound Tourist Satisfaction, released on Monday, also pointed to a broader rebound in outbound travel. Mainland residents made 148 million outbound trips in 2025, close to the 155 million recorded in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic. Outbound travel spending totalled nearly US$160 billion (MOP1.29 trillion), with both trips and spending rising by more than 20 percent year-on-year. New Zealand and Australia followed Macau in the 2025 list, with Hong Kong, Argentina, Spain, Singapore, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom also featuring among the top 10. The China Tourism Academy, a research institute under the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism, measures satisfaction by assessing ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lam Lon Wai quer combate intenso às apostas ilegais

jun26 Os casos de jogo ilegal aumentaram em Macau mais de vinte vezes desde 2023. O deputado da FAOM pede mais atenção ao Campeonato Mundial de Futebol e avisa que pode levar a uma nova vaga de apostas ilegais   O deputado Lam Lon Wai defendeu a necessidade das autoridades intensificarem o combate às apostas ilegais. O assunto foi abordado pelo legislador ligado à Federação das Associações dos Operários de Macau (FAOM), através de uma interpelação escrita, numa altura em que decorre o Campeonato Mundial de Futebol. Segundo Lam, nos “últimos anos” o número de casos de “jogo ilegal em Macau aumentou significativamente”, uma tendência que antevê que vai continuar a verificar-se “tendo em conta o eventual aumento das apostas clandestinas durante o Mundial de Futebol”. Devido a estes receios, Lam Lon Wai pede às autoridades para reforçarem “a cooperação policial transfronteiriça, a partilha de informações e a utilização de meios tecnológicos de investigação”. O objectivo passa por “aume...
Post a Comment
Read more

live streaming, placing proxy bets

Image
 jul26 Police intensify crackdown as proxy betting incidents rise By Aries Un Macau police have recently busted a litany of gambling-linked live streams, with the latest case involving a mainland Chinese national carrying out a proxy betting operation via a mobile phone in his shirt pocket. According to a Judiciary Police (PJ) announcement on Thursday, the latest suspect is a 41-year-old businessperson who was engaged in deals reaching HK$30,000 (MOP30,861 / US$3,828) across three remote betting attempts. The alleged filming came to light as the PJ was conducting an anti-crime mission inside a casino on Wednesday afternoon. The suspect was found to have acted ‘suspiciously’ at a baccarat table on the gaming floor. The authorities said that he appeared to be hiding a mobile phone in a chest pocket, with its camera left exposed and pointing at an electronic baccarat display. It was further noted that he was found to have taken orders from mainland Chinese punters through an instant m...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wage Premium and Rent Sharing of a Dominant Sector: The Gaming of Macao estudo

 jul 26 Chi-shing Chan1 | Jie He2 | Fung Kwan3 | Ziang Qiu4 | Yang Zhang5 1 Centre for Macau Studies, University of Macau, Macao, China | 2Department of Economics, University of Macau, Macao, China | 3Department of Economics, Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics & Management, Centre for Macau Studies, University of Macau, Macao, China | 4Faculty of Business Administration, University of Macau, Macao, China | 5Department of Finance and Business Economics, University of Macau, Macao, China Correspondence: Fung Kwan (fungkwan@umac.mo) Received: 30 January 2026 | Revised: 13 May 2026 | Accepted: 14 June 2026 Keywords: gaming sector | inter-industry wage differential | Macao | rent sharing | wage premium ABSTRACT We examined the hidden wage differences between gaming, a dominant sector of the small open economy, Macao, and non- gaming. The findings reveal significant and persistent wage gaps between the gaming industry and other sectors of the economy, even after accounting for labour-...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dependência do jogo em Macau representa "riscos estruturais" para a China, afirma estudo

 jul26 Apesar dos esforços do Governo para diversificar a economia de Macau, o peso dos casinos nas receitas correntes da RAEM é cada vez maior. As receitas provenientes do jogo já equivalem a quase 88% das receitas globais da Administração. https://pontofinal-macau.com/2026/07/12/cofres-da-raem-cada-vez-mais-dependentes-do-jogo/ jul26 s chineses alertaram, com base num estudo que fizeram, que a dependência de Macau do jogo trouxe ganhos económicos consideráveis ao território, mas representa “riscos estruturais” para a estabilidade financeira da cidade e da China continental. Os investigadores Zhong Yun e Hu Zhouqin, do Instituto de Economia da Universidade de Jinan, acompanharam a evolução do setor desde a abertura das concessões em 2002 até ao presente, avaliando o seu papel na estratégia governamental de “diversificação económica adequada”. Assina O estudo, publicado na revista académica “Estudos na Área do Jogo e do Turismo Mundial” da Universidade Politécnica de Macau, conclui...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Tale of Two Cities An executive’s view of Macau vs Las Vegas

 jun26 Mark Tricano has held senior executive positions at Macau’s Galaxy Entertainment Group and in the US with Caesars Entertainment, Fontainebleau and Station Casinos. In this first of a two-part series, he shares his unique insights into the differences between working in these two global gaming hubs. On the surface, Las Vegas and Macau look like two sides of the same coin. Walk a casino in either market and the energy is familiar – the sounds, the movement and the excitement – but dig deeper and they are meaningfully different. They operate under different rules, serve different customers and require different attributes from the people responsible for leading them. I have spent the better part of two decades working in Las Vegas and several years operating at a senior level in Macau. To be clear, I’m not a regulatory expert, a cultural scholar or the foremost authority on either market, but I am an operator who has paid close attention and learned a few things along the way. ...
Post a Comment
Read more