The Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau have warned its residents that online gambling in the territory is illegal and not to be fooled by websites that carry the name “Macau” in its URL.
It comes after a spate of illegal websites fooling residents has been reported with the name Macau trying to represent legal land based operators with online offerings.
The regulator says that some websites are claiming also to be the official Macau Lottery online, this is also wrong as the lottery service is not online and once again illegal. The announcement goes on to say that if any residents suspect online activities to be illegal then they should report them to the police.
This latest announcement follows rumours in the region that the Chinese government could be considering the possibility of allowing some forms of online gambling while the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting the World’s largest gambling hub in the world hard with revenues down almost 90% since the pandemic struck in March this year.
The Macau government receives 84% of its revenues from gambling and last year casinos generated nearly $17 billion in revenues. With estimates for this year quoting those revenues could shrink by as much as 60%, rumours whether they are right or wrong will continue.
One such whisper coming out of Macau is that Operators there could be given a limited online gambling license until travel restrictions both locally and internationally are relaxed. No confirmation on this has been given and the official line is that online gambling is illegal both in Macau and on mainland China.
