Business Daily Monday, September 12 2016 7
Macau of the money the casinos do during the tournaments is from the hotels and food and beverage - after all, a tournament can last three days. Also during tournaments, the casinos put low stakes tables around the main ones, so that the girlfriends or boyfriends of the players can play too. When I was the regional manager of PokerStars, Grand Waldo at the time was very forward thinking and trying to be innovative, having the first craps table and the first poker tournament. Then we moved to Grand Lisboa, and in one way they were very happy and in another we took up a lot of space on their second floor. So what would you say are the best places to play poker in Macau? Well, in terms of aesthetics, I think Wynn Macau has the most beautiful poker rooms. The Venetian is a good place for an experienced player to win money from a lot of inexperienced players that go there, and City of Dreams I think has the hardest poker games in terms of the number of skilled players. How about in terms of online poker? I believe in Macau only SJM’s Macau Slot has a license, while everyone else can’t provide real money online gaming. In terms of real money gaming, PokerStars online is still by far the biggest player here, and has the biggest tournaments. What would you like to see done in the city in terms of regulations for online gaming? Regulations depend on the government’s view, but honestly if you are a player in Macau, the last thing you want to do is play online, since there’s so many options for where to go! I think how it is right now is fine, there’s definitely a reason for it. I don’t think that anyone thinks that Macau is an online gaming market.
If you come here, it better be for live gaming, because it’s so accessible in such a small area. For instance, for a gamer in Tokyo, it takes him two hours to get back home by bullet train from the province to bet, so he will play online. In Macau, if the taxi ride is more than 10 minutes to the nearest casino, it’s already an outrage.
“I don’t think anyone thinks that Macau is an online gaming market” A lot of times commuters do online gaming while they’re waiting, but Macau is so small that online gaming doesn’t really have a place here. I think the law is clear the way it is now, so they don’t need to do a lot of enforcement, since there’s just not a lot of online gaming. Do you think online gaming is viewed as a step too far in terms of gaming addiction? It depends on each country, since in each country there are politicians that don’t know about gaming or gaming behaviour. They might think it’s good because of tax revenues or bad, but it all depends on the market. In Macau, dealers have to be local residents, so nobody wants to go to university anymore if you have a guaranteed job that pays that much. However, the local resident population is quite small and they’ve been around gaming their whole lives, so even if there’s some problem gaming, it’s not too severe, it’s quite manageable. In Hong Kong, the Jockey Club tries not to be profitable because they want
to manage the social issues, and in England online gaming regulations are very open, because that market is used to that kind of gaming. However in places like China, South Korea or Japan or Eastern Asia, if online gaming was legal, no one would do anything, they would just game all day long. So in those countries online gaming has to be more regulated. Japan has pachinko, and South Korea has its casinos and social gaming, so I think that’s enough for them. China is always thinking of ways to be progressive and has kept gaming in Macau, so their strategy is very clear: in case they think the issue is getting out of hand, they reduce visas to the city, as a way to turn the tap on and off. So in your opinion, there is a regional dimension to gaming addiction that
needs to be taken into account? I think in terms of social gaming, regulations here are fine. In terms of real money gaming, I really believe you have to look at how much social damage there could be because of it. For example, Singapore has outlawed everything now, but if you look at the Philippines, everyone can gamble and socially it’s not much of an issue, because I think that even though Filipinos have the right to gamble, they don’t really take a lot of pleasure in gambling. They prefer singing, dancing, socialising and enjoying life in different ways, and see gambling as just one part of it. I think if countries like China and South Korea legalised gambling the way it is in Macau, nobody would do anything else and the countries would collapse.