Gaming experts once predicted that China’s crackdown on corruption and capital flight would doom Macau’s junket sector. In 2024, Macao News cited insiders who said the “sun [was] setting on junket operators” to the point of “extinction”.
But the industry has survived. For 2026, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance has sanctioned 29 junkets, or gaming promoters, to operate in the city. That’s a 21% increase over 2025, a year that began with 24 operators. However, it’s still well below the maximum of 50 available licensees and a fraction of the 235 junkets that operated in 2014.
Decline of a once-dominant industry
In the past, junkets made their money by bringing high rollers to city casinos and operating VIP rooms to serve them. Junket promoters organised travel, accommodations and lines of credit and also served as debt collectors.
That model started to crumple amid Beijing’s crackdown on corruption, capital flight and gamblers’ attempts to bypass foreign-exchange limits. Two high-profile cases accelerated the downfall. In 2023, a Chinese court found Alvin Chau, founder of Macau’s biggest junket, Suncity, guilty on more than 100 counts of illegal gaming and organised crime. The “junket king” bilked casinos of HK$823.7 billion in undeclared bets, robbing the government of HK$8.26 billion in tax revenue. Chau was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
That same year, Tak Chun junket boss Levo Chan was convicted on 34 counts of organised crime, illegal gaming and money laundering. He, too, facilitated under-the-table bets that defrauded casinos of HK$35 billion and the government of approximately HK$8.6 billion. He was jailed for 14 years.
By 2024, only 18 junkets were active in the city, prompting JP Morgan analyst DS Kim to call the traditional model “a thing of the past”.
A new definition of junkets in Macau
Junkets today operate under wholly different and much stricter regulations.
Under Macau’s 2023 gaming law, promoters may do business with just one of the six concessionaires, although concessionaires may contract with more than one junket. Instead of sharing casino revenues, they earn a fixed 1.25% commission on rolling-chip turnover. The amended gaming law also forbids junkets from issuing casino credit. And junkets can no longer independently manage VIP rooms, which served as the hub of illegal betting activity in the past.
VIP revenue has adjusted accordingly. In 2025, VIP baccarat generated about HK$66 billion, up almost 25% over the previous year but just 27.48% of total gaming revenue, well under the 46.24% posted in 2019. For 2026, JP Morgan expects mass and slot GGR to grow 7%-8% while VIP declines about 5%.
Meanwhile, junkets in search of greener pastures reportedly have moved to less stringently regulated jurisdictions. At G2E Asia last year, attorney Luis Mesquita de Melo called Vietnam “an emerging jurisdiction”.
“In Vietnam, the junkets are called international tour operators or travel operators, but they are, in essence, junkets as we know mainly from Macau,” said Mesquita de Melo, who serves as general counsel at Hoiana Resort & Golf in Hoi An, Vietnam. “There is absolutely no regulation, which makes the junket operations a grey area that raises a number of concerns.”
Marjorie Preston
Marjorie began her gaming career in 2007 and has focused on Asian gaming markets since 2020. Outside of work, she writes about travel and film and plays the drums.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/casino/land-based-casino-regulation/macau-authorises-new-casino-junkets/
