Macau Business
The final blow to ‘satellite casinos’ as casino revenue-sharing entities, delivered by the Chief Executive during the 2025 Public Policy Address presentation, was inevitable and did not surprise anyone.
The legislator of the 2022 amendments to the gaming laws established a three-year grace period (which ends on December 31, 2025) to facilitate a ‘smooth’ closure of ‘satellite casinos,’ or conversion of their current owners from casino revenue-sharing entities to (mere) casino management companies, which can only receive a fixed management fee, i.e., not tied to any metric, namely performance, and, by express legal determination, particularly to casino revenues. In addition, it conditioned the actions of the government in the matter by removing the ‘safeguard clauses’ that would allow it to stand on its own two feet and follow a different path without requiring approval from the Legislative Assembly on whether to extend the grace period or to allow the ‘satellite casinos’ to continue sharing casino revenues.
In this context, the Chief Executive reaffirmed the legally established grace period.
Probably excluding the six Mocha’s ‘gaming machine parlours’ (which fall under the definition of casinos as per the Gaming Law), the potential closure of the remaining eleven ‘satellite casinos’—Landmark, Grandview, Kam Pek Paradise, Casa Real, Fortuna, Emperor Palace, Pier 16, Le Royal Arc, and Legend Palace in the orbit of SJM, Waldo in the orb of Galaxy, and Grand Dragon in the trajectory of Melco—does not constitute a social drama, as some would have you believe.
