Macau halts casino growth
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Macau will stop approving land for new casinos, slowing a gaming explosion that has seen big players spending billions of dollars building resorts.
Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, will also stop granting new casino licenses, limiting the number of operators to six “for a period,” the government said in a statement, citing Chief Executive Edmund Ho, Bloomberg reported.
The number casinos in Macau has more than doubled to 29 since the government ended local tycoon Stanley Ho’s 40-year gaming monopoly. With that, major US gaming giants such as Las Vegas Sans and MGM Mirage made Macau their latest playground. IN fact Macau has outstripped the Las Vegas Strip as the world’s biggest gaming hub.
Analysts and commentators quoted in the Bloomberg report said there had been concerns over social issues amid the rapid growth of the industry. Local labour groups led three protests last year complaining their members did not benefit from the economy’s growth. They had also complained against government corruption and illegal foreign workers, according to the report.
“The over-concentration of the gaming industry and the social issues associated with it have long been a concern for the government,” Enoch Fung, a Hong Kong-based economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was quoted saying in a report.
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