Retendering21-22

  Maintaining game pace, ensuring dealer expertise and the availability of “smart” gaming tables are all important elements if the Macau casino market is to see a successful expansion of a baccarat ‘insurance bet’, a product that sparks some interest among players while also boosting house advantage, say several industry experts spoken to by GGRAsia. Guaranteeing dealers had sufficient training to handle the complexity of ‘baccarat insurance’ rules and payouts would be important if the option were to have a chance of gaining popularity, observed the experts. Baccarat insurance bets have been offered recently at the “Supreme” high-limit rooms at MGM Macau and MGM Cotai, according to a Citigroup  January survey  of Macau premium-table bets. GGRAsia approached MGM China Holdings Ltd, operator of the two properties; and the local regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, for comment on the insurance-bet topic, but had not received a reply from either, by the t...

fev25 ONLINE GAMING China’s security officials had “destroyed” during 2024 “over 4,500” online gambling platforms and probed “73,000” cases that were said to involve so-called cross-border gambling activities, the country’s Ministry of Security said in a Thursday update. It also mentioned that the authorities had “destroyed… solicitation networks and underground banks” on the Chinese mainland that had been run by several large-scale “overseas gambling groups”. For Chinese officials, “overseas gambling” can include land-based and online activities. “Cross-border gambling” is usually understood specifically to mean indviduals crossing China’s territorial boundaries to gamble. Regarding various alleged services for gambling outside China’s borders, the ministry said a three-year investigation conducted by the authorities in the city of Chongqing, Sichuan province, had led in October to the breaking up of a gang it termed the “DC Group”. The gang had “long been stationed in the Philippines...