Closed Casinos in Asia: Venues Shut by Regulators, Licenses or Operators

Why casinos in Asia get closed: regulators, licenses and operators

A casino in Asia usually stops trading for one of four reasons, and knowing which one applies tells you whether it will come back.

The first is a government order. This is the broadest kind: a health or emergency measure that applies to every venue in a jurisdiction at once. Macau has used this twice in recent years, and both times the closure was temporary and applied across the board.

The second is a license problem. A venue loses a license, has one revoked, or hands it back. This can hit a single property while everything around it keeps trading. The Beijing Wangfu Hotel case is the clearest example in Macau: several of its facilities had already had licenses revoked or been closed before the hotel itself was sealed².

The third is quarantine or an on-site emergency. This is narrower than a citywide shutdown. A single property is isolated, staff and guests are held in place, and the casino floor goes dark until the health authority clears it.

The fourth is the operator's own decision. A property closes for commercial reasons, or a company decides to return a license rather than keep spending on compliance. Macau recorded five hotels suspending operations for commercial reasons in early 2020³.

For visitors, the practical question is always the same: is this a few days, a few months, or permanent? A government shutdown order is measured in days. A license return is measured in months or longer. A sealed building can sit untouched for years.

Macau's 15-day government shutdown: what happened and when

Macau's first citywide casino closure of the pandemic era ran for 15 days. The measures took effect after the stroke of midnight on Wednesday, July 15, 2020, and were framed as a public health measure⁷.

When the casinos came back, they did not come back at full capacity. Venues operated with 50 percent fewer tables than usual, a distancing measure that changed how the floor felt for anyone who visited in that period⁸. If you were in Macau in the second half of 2020, the practical effect was fewer seats, longer waits at peak times, and a thinner spread of open tables.

The second shutdown came two years later and was shorter but more disruptive in one respect. The Macau government ordered casinos and all non-essential businesses to suspend operations from July 11, 2022, and then extended that order to July 22, 2022⁴.

The reopening was staged rather than instant. Casinos resumed operations between July 23, 2022 and July 30, 2022, and during that window no more than 50 percent of casino staff could be on site at the same time⁴. That is a detail worth remembering if you are trying to work out why a venue you visited in late July 2022 felt half-staffed and half-open.

For a visitor, the pattern is: a hard stop, a short extension, then a phased return with capacity limits. Nothing about your chips or your booking changes because of the shutdown itself. What changes is whether the doors are open on the day you arrive.

Beijing Wangfu Hotel: sealed by the Macau Government Tourist Office

The Beijing Wangfu Hotel in Taipa is the best-documented case of a Macau property being shut by a regulator rather than by its owner.

The Macau Government Tourist Office ordered the hotel temporarily closed for serious administrative violations and fire safety deficiencies, with the closure taking effect from July 23, 2016 and running for six months². The building is 16 floors and holds 599 rooms².

The immediate practical problem was the guests. More than 1,000 travellers were expected to need relocation within days². If you had a booking at the property in late July 2016, you were not staying there, and you were finding a new room in Taipa at short notice during peak summer.

The order came with a warning attached: any member of the public entering during the closure could commit the crime of disobedience². That is the part that matters most to a curious visitor. A sealed hotel in Macau is not a building you can walk into for a look. The signage is not decorative.

The hotel's management decided to return the hotel license to the Macau Government Tourist Office and said it would reapply once all compliance requirements were met⁹. The temporary closure period was due to expire on January 22, 2017⁹. The press at the time noted that if the hotel did not improve after the temporary closure period, it could face permanent closure².

What happened to the Greek Mythology casino at Beijing Wangfu Hotel

The Greek Mythology casino was the gaming operation inside the Beijing Wangfu Hotel, and it is the reason the property still comes up in conversation years after the hotel closed.

By October 2018, more than two years after the closure order, the hotel remained sealed and untouched despite rumors that a new buyer had emerged for the Greek Mythology casino⁵. That is the practical answer to the question people actually ask: no, it did not quietly reopen, and no, the casino did not move to a new operator and start trading again under a different name.

For anyone tracking a closed casino in Asia, this is the pattern to watch for. A closure order is one event. What happens next depends on whether a buyer appears, whether the license can be restored, and whether the building passes the compliance requirements that caused the closure in the first place. In this case, none of those things had happened by late 2018.

If you are in Taipa and you see the building, treat it as closed. There is no public access, and the entry warning from the original order still describes the situation.

Typhoon and emergency suspensions in Macau

Not every Macau closure is citywide. Some hit a single property, and they can happen fast.

On October 30, 2022, the casino at MGM Cotai suspended operations until further notice¹⁰. The suspension was not limited to the gaming floor. Shops inside the hotel suspended operations, and the hotel restaurant suspended operations as well¹⁰. Casino and hotel staff and hotel guests were placed in on-site quarantine from October 30 to November 1¹¹.

That is what an on-site quarantine looks like from the outside: the building is still standing, the lights may still be on, and nothing is open. If you had a reservation at that property in that window, you were not gambling, you were not shopping, and you were not eating in the hotel restaurant.

The wider pattern in early 2020 was commercial rather than regulatory. Macau recorded five hotels suspending operations for commercial reasons³. Those are operator decisions, not government orders, and they tend to reverse when demand returns.

For typhoons specifically, the practical advice is the same as for any emergency suspension: check with the property directly on the day. A casino that is normally open 24 hours can still close its floor for a health order, a quarantine or a safety measure, and the reopening time is set by the authority handling the incident, not by the casino.

Rules that still apply when casinos are open

Closed casinos get the attention, but the rules that apply at open ones are what most visitors actually need. These differ sharply by jurisdiction and by who you are.

In Macau, the legal age to enter or leave a casino is 21, and under-21s are prohibited from entering¹. The age was raised from 18 to 21¹³. Horse racing, football and basketball betting keep a lower legal age of 18⁶. So a 19-year-old can legally bet on football in Macau but cannot walk into a casino.

Macau also bars specific categories of people from the gaming floor entirely¹⁴:

• People who are incapacitated
• Quasi-prohibited persons
• Culpable undischarged bankrupts
• Public administration staff unless authorized or on duty
• Off-duty casino employees
• People who are intoxicated or affected by drugs
• People carrying weapons, explosives or recording devices

Public administration workers, including public utility entity staff and security forces personnel, are banned unless the Chief Executive permits it¹⁵.

Recording is its own rule. People carrying equipment mainly used for video or audio recording, or with no other significant purpose besides recording, are prohibited from entering casinos unless the concessionaire permits it¹³. That covers phones used for filming and livestreaming.

South Korea splits its casino floors by nationality. Casino business premises must be operated divided into a members-only area and a general area, and a foreigner-only area may be operated separately where needed to attract foreigners, including overseas migrants¹⁶. Korean nationals must not be allowed entry to the foreigner-only floor¹⁷. In practice, that means the foreigners-only casinos in Korea screen nationality and manage customer data accordingly¹⁸. Paradise Casino Busan is a foreigners-only casino¹⁹, and Paradise Casino Paradise City admits foreign nationals and overseas permanent residents only, with Korean nationals barred from entry²⁰.

Singapore takes a different approach: entry is by the operator's license, and a person enters and remains on casino premises only by the license of the casino operator²¹. Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents pay an entry levy, and that levy is not refunded if the casino closes for any reason, including a pandemic²². It is also not refunded if you have an exclusion order, a visit limit, or any other entry restriction imposed by the operator²².

Japan has a self-exclusion mechanism built into its casino framework. At the visitor's own request, a casino operator can prohibit that visitor from entering the facility, or limit the number of times they may enter in one month²³.

How closures affect visitors: entry, refunds and relocation

The question people ask after a closure is what happens to their money and their booking. The answers are more limited than most people expect.

On chips and balances, the practical position is that a closure order does not create a refund right. Singapore states this most plainly: the entry levy is not refunded upon closure of the casino due to any circumstance, including a pandemic²². If a jurisdiction with an explicit levy rule takes that line, assume the same logic applies to a venue that shuts its doors.

On memberships and rewards, a closed property cannot honor them. If a casino suspends operations until further notice, as MGM Cotai did on October 30, 2022, there is no floor to play on and no desk to visit¹⁰. Your points do not disappear, but they are not usable until the property reopens.

On bookings, the Beijing Wangfu Hotel case shows what relocation looks like in practice: more than 1,000 travellers expected to need relocation within days². If you are holding a reservation at a property that gets sealed, expect to move, and expect to do it quickly.

On access, a sealed building is not a tourist attraction. Entering during a closure can constitute the crime of disobedience in Macau². That applies whether you are a visitor, a resident or a citizen.

For open casinos, the practical details are more useful than the closure rules. Macau casinos arrange free shuttle buses available at border entry points and tourist hotspots¹. Many casinos have restaurants serving international cuisine, so a visit does not have to be only about the floor¹. If you want to understand what is inside before you go, the casinos and integrated resorts guide covers who can enter and what you can play, and the opening hours page covers the 24-hour pattern and the exceptions.

If you are planning around a specific jurisdiction, the country guides set out the entry rules that apply to citizens, residents and visitors separately: Macau, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Cambodia.

One more practical note on Sihanoukville. The town is not closing down. Poker rooms there run multi-day cash game festivals, and the casino scene continues to operate. What changes is the operator mix and the enforcement pressure on illegal online operations, not a blanket shutdown.