China Serious On Digital Currency For Macau Casinos

The Chinese government are moving along with their plans to make a digital currency the only way to purchase gambling chips in the World’s largest gambling hub, Macau’s Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng said that his government will work with China’s central bank “to study the feasibility of issuing a digital currency.”

This has junket operators who work in Macau a major worry as it would in effect remove the need for them and in turn at present supplies some 50% of all gamblers to Macau casinos.

Although at present no formal plans have been made to show how the currency would work the Chinese government believe such a move to a digital Yuan would remove money laundering issues, tax evasions and the funding of International terrorism.

It would also present a serious concern to the US and its dollar currency as the world’s reserve currency of choice.

However in Macau which is still struggling to turn the pandemic around with revenues the possibility that only a digital currency can be used in their casinos is a greater worry, the fear that this will make Chinese gamblers look elsewhere to play instead of being tracked by their government in terms of currency spending would be a disaster in the making for them.

Rumours coming out of China say that the government there are planning a major rollout of the digital Yuan for the Winter Olympics in Beijing in February 2022, to showcase the new currency to visitors. China has already trialled the currency in several of its cities and the fear for junket operators and casino operators is that China will enforce this currency for the start of the Winter Olympics.