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Special report – Ace of Crime

Special report – Ace of Crime

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The crime in connection with games increases, despite a decline in the number of casinos and overall revenue compared to 2019. Reports on suspicious transactions and illegal money exchange activities have increased

Macau Business | May 2025 | Special report | Games: a restructured landscape

Already in 2019 – one year that the benchmark became in Macau for almost everything – 40 casinos were in operation. Today this number has dropped to 30. But fewer casinos, fewer visitors and lower game revenue have not prevented an increase in criminal activities

One of the crimes associated with games can be found out: The number of the suspicious transaction reports (STRS) submitted by Macaus Gaming operators rose to a record of 3,837 last year, which is not only an increase of 11.8 percent compared to the previous year, but also the highest annual admission since the establishment of the financial intelligence office in 2006.

Suspicious transaction reports on the increase

If we add that Gaming operators were responsible for 73.2 percent of the 5,245 STRs in Macau last year and that this total amount also set up a new annual record for the area, the problem is even clearer.

[STRs are triggered by customer behaviours that may indicate money laundering activities, such as the conversion of chips with little or no gambling activity. Macau casinos are also required to submit large-amount transaction reports for transactions exceeding MOP500,000 (US$62,298).]

Another crime that strikes due to the explosion in these two years are illegal money changers (in fact they always existed, but with a residual value).

In order to understand the extent of the happening, the figures from 2023 show that the Macau police have involved a total of 11,870 people in the illegal exchange of money, which corresponds to an increase of 239 percent or 8,365 people compared to 2022. Compared to the pre-pandemic levels in 2019, this was an increase of 41.3 percent or 4,910 people.

Increase in the illegal change of money

The question of such proportions arose that the government created the crime of the non -licensed foreign exchange trading in the new “Law to combat illegal gambling crimes” that were approved last October.

This increase in illegal money changers will be the end of the VIP business, as was the case before pandemic, and with the difficulties of having changed the casinos guests imposed by the Chinese state administration of the outer exchange in the bank account in China in China in China. In addition, the Unionpay Mobile POS termals in Macau are made illegally via Unionpay Mobile Pos terminals and connected to servers in China Macau business.

Everyone is clear that China's security authorities were much more vigilant than in the past, and in the past two years there has been an abundance of news about cross -border police activities with effects on play areas.

'Breeding ground'

In addition to the cases of suspicious transaction reports and illegal exchange of money, there are other crimes related to games that can now be considered “classic”. This happens with fraud cases that show a “trend high incidence”, says Wong Sio Chak, secretary of the security secretary.

There are also cases of usury, theft, illegitimate appropriation, disobedience (violation of the ban on entry in casinos) or kidnapping.

“Regardless of the results of some empirical studies, casinos and gambling for a number of deviating behavior and crimes are generally seen as a breeding ground,” says Research, which was carried out by Quan Fang from the School of Law at Macau University of Science and Technology.

And Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo, author of several publications on crimes in Macau, remembers that “the existence of casinos leads to activities such as white money laundering, loan shark and prostitution”.

However, Lo also refers to “the geographical proximity to mainland china, where boundaries are incredibly porous and incredibly porous by illegal activities such as pharmaceutical and human trafficking as well as through Internet fraud and telecommunications fraud.

Mark six illegally in Macau

The law that fought illegal gambling activities has officially banned the popular lottery game from Hong Kong, Mark Six, in Macau.

Since October, all operations or sales in connection with Mark Six have been subject to a maximum prison sentence of two years or financial penalties of fines of up to 240 days.

Before the death of the law, tickets organized by the Hong Kong Jockey Club were occasionally found in Macau, especially in family -run or small to medium -sized companies.

This MP Ron Lam asked the government to legalize the sale of Mark Six tickets and described it as a “deeply rooted and harmless popular custom of the residents of Macau”, but his plea was unsuccessful.

In September last year, the police authorities announced the arrest of a woman who had resold Mark Six Six Lottery tickets in Taipa for MOP52, although her nominal value is HKD47. She made a win of around HKD3.50 per ticket.

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