Macau’s Visits Up Despite Chinese Civil Service Gambling Ban

Even though China is cracking down on its civil servants from gambling or cheating, even on personal time, Macau is still seeing a rise in visits from the Chinese mainland.

Chinese gambling laws are extremely tough as it is, and it looks like civil servants in the northern province in Liaoning have been given strict orders to behave morally at all times. The current order covers gambling and fidelity, but also extends to drugs and talking badly online.

The new rules could even follow up with jailing of random offenders just to make an example of them and to get others to take the government seriously.

Land-based and online casinos in China might be outlawed, but things are different in the Chinese enclave of Macau, where gambling is legal and hugely popular with visitors from the mainland.

Despite China’s crackdown on gambling, Macau continues to enjoy an increased number of visitors from the Chinese mainland, which rose 23% in the past year.

Macau sees increased visits, despite China civil service gambling ban

Now, visitors might just be heading to Macau for its luxury hotels, which now enjoy an occupancy of 97.2%, but statistics from older data show that 84% of Macau spending is on gambling.

The figures at the end of 2013 has been positive for Macau, showing a visitor and revenue growth of 17.5% and 91.5%, respectively from the 2010 number.

The question is whether the new rule will be imposed on civil servants in Macau or abroad as well.