Bloomberg reported that operators of the only legal casinos in China are feeling the pressure from concerns of a crackdown on illegal money transfers, which they said could pare demand. Citing a South China Morning Post report, the news agency said the Chinese government will be cracking down the use of hand-held card-swipers within casino resorts to address allegations that tens of billions of yuan in illegal funds are being transferred to Macau. The Asian paper did not name its sources who are allegedly from the gaming and security business.
In Hongkong trading, Wynn Macau Ltd posted its biggest decline in over two years, leading the rest of the Chinese casino operators. Wynn Resorts Ltd posted a 8.5% decrease at the trading close, its biggest decline since October three years ago. MGM China Holdings Ltd and Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd dropped 8.2% and 7.6% respectively.
In a May 5 report by investment bank Union Gaming Group, it predicted that Macau could tighten its visa rules for visitors coming from the mainland. According to Macau police's emailed statement today, it had made 12 arrests in February and March this year which involved pay card fraud. On February 18, there were six arrests made when six UnionPay card terminals, HK$700,000 of cash and account books were seized. On March 4, and additional four people were detained by police and three China UnionPay card terminals, purchase receipts and HK$920,000 were subsequently seized as well. Two people were later arrested again by police and the latter retrieved four payment terminal devices, 304 bank cards, authentication machines, card consumption receipts, China travel permits and more than HK$3.4 million ($438,000) in cash in the former's possession.
The unit of China UnionPay said in an e-mailed statement has said that UnionPay International has risk prevention measures in place and has been collaborating closely with authorities to curb money laundering. Moreover, the debit card company said it does monitor unusually large transactions, shares risk intelligence with authorities and inspects merchants.
