From January to March, law enforcement in Macau reported a significant 61.5% rise in gaming-related crimes, with 567 incident reports filed, up from the first quarter of 2024. This increase has been closely associated with recent legislative changes that criminalized unlicensed currency exchanges in the casino-centric city.
In response to concerns over illicit financial activity, Beijing intensified efforts against illegal money changers last June. These changes have been known to assist gamblers in circumventing governmental restrictions on capital flight. By October, this activity was officially made illegal when the Macau Legislative Assembly passed new laws.
The Ministry of Public Security indicated that these currency exchange operations facilitated not only money laundering but were also implicated in a range of serious offenses, including fights, fraud, theft, illegal immigration, and even more severe crimes such as kidnapping and murder.
Further amendments to the Law on Combating Gambling Crimes have introduced prison terms of up to five years for those found guilty of these offenses, with subsequent convictions possibly resulting in a decade-long prohibition from entering city casinos.
Additionally, the penalties for engaging in illegal gambling activities like side and parallel betting have been escalated, with maximum sentences reaching up to eight years. The newly adjusted law also empowers police forces with increased authority to infiltrate and dismantle suspected illegal gambling operations.
#### Crime Up Despite Fewer Casinos
Interestingly, the spike in criminal incidents takes place against a backdrop of a declining number of casinos, dropping from 40 in 2019 to just 30 currently, as reported by Macau Business.
The financial surveillance by gaming operators has intensified, with suspicious transaction reports hitting a high of 3,837 last year, marking an 11.8% increase from the previous year and achieving a peak not seen since 2006, the year Macau’s Financial Intelligence Office was established.
This rise in illicit financial activity seems to align with transformations in how VIP gaming business is conducted, notably the drastic reduction of the junket trade, following stringent overseas withdrawal limits set by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange—capping at CNY100,000 ($14,000) annually, a trivial sum for high rollers accustomed to betting $25,000 per game.
Of the 567 cases documented in the first quarter, 132 involved illicit money exchanging, accounting for over 60% of the uptick. Fraud followed with 152 cases, or 26.8%. Also included were various other offenses such as usury, theft, misappropriation, and violation of casino exclusion mandates.
“Casinos and gambling tend to foster a myriad of deviant behaviors and criminal operations,” remarked Quan Fang from the School of Law at Macau University of Science and Technology.
Echoing this sentiment, Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo, an author on Macau’s crime scene, noted that casinos are hotspots for illegal activities including white-collar money laundering, loan sharking, and prostitution.
The amendment outlawing money exchanges was introduced just after a money changer, who had recently won about CNY2.3 million at a local casino, was found murdered in his room at the Wynn Palace on Cotai.
The first quarter of 2025 thus marks a notable rise in gaming-related crime in Macau, a trend clearly linked to the recent prohibitive legislation targeting illegal money exchange operations.