Macau Junkets and VIP Rooms

For most visitors, gambling in Macau means the bright, busy mass-market floors described in our guide to casinos in Macau. But for decades, the real money moved upstairs, in private VIP rooms run by junket operators. This page explains how that world worked, what happened to it, and what remains.

How the junket system worked

A junket is a package deal for high rollers. Junket operators are popular in Asia, and they usually fly players from all over the world to play at Macau's casinos⁴. The operator arranges the flights, the hotel, the transfers, and, crucially, access to a private gaming room that ordinary visitors never see.

The economics are simple. The casino supplies the tables and the license; the junket supplies the players and, in many cases, handles the credit. In exchange, the junket earns a share of the play. Macau's regulator, the DICJ, licenses these operators as "gaming promoters."

The price of entry was high. Traditionally, VIP-room patrons were expected to bring a gaming budget of over MOP500,000 per visit, though casinos sometimes relaxed this threshold during periods of intense competition¹. That is roughly the level of commitment a junket expected before it would fly you in and sit you down in a private salon.

In practice, a junket trip looked like this:

• Before you travel: the operator confirms your budget, books your flights and hotel, and reserves your seat in a named VIP room.
• On arrival: transfers, check-in, and an introduction to the room's host, who handles your chips and markers.
• In the room: play at private tables, almost always baccarat, at stakes far above the mass floor.
• Settlement: winnings and losses settled through the operator, not the casino cage.

The game of choice in these rooms was almost always baccarat, played at very high stakes on private tables. If you are curious about how the game itself works, our baccarat page covers the rules; the VIP rooms ran the same game, just with far bigger chips.

The biggest promoter of them all was Suncity. Its reach was such that analysts tracked its individual room openings: when Suncity was expected to inaugurate its operations at Wynn Macau in February 2015, it was treated as market news⁵.

Where the VIP rooms were, and what happened to them

VIP rooms were never standalone venues. They were private salons inside the big casino resorts, each run under a junket's name. The Plaza Macao had dedicated VIP halls for VIP and premium customers⁶. New resorts did not always open with their VIP halls ready on day one; some held them back and opened the mass-market floor first, a pattern that became more common as the junket era faded.

The operators kept investing in these spaces. Las Vegas Sands announced plans to renovate the VIP areas at the Venetian Macao and the Plaza Macao as part of a wider resort revamp⁷. Studio City added VIP rooms a year after opening⁸, though at launch Deutsche Bank noted that no tables there would be earmarked for junket VIP play⁹. At MGM Cotai, Morgan Stanley expected the junket-operated VIP gaming clubs to start operating by mid-2018, alongside 27 mansion accommodation units¹⁰.

The closures

The room count has been falling for years. As early as January 2015, a Chinese newspaper reported that between 40 and 50 VIP rooms in the city might close, driven by the integration of the market¹¹. The David Group, one of Macau's established junkets, was reported to be in the process of shutting down its VIP rooms that same month¹².

By August 2015, Macau had seen the closure of at least 8 VIP rooms within the span of a month, with 8 to 10 rooms closed or slated for closure that August alone¹³. Individual closures kept coming, and the record of them reads like a countdown:

The pattern repeated for years. The David Group had already closed VIP rooms in the Venetian Macao and City of Dreams before winding down its operations, according to Nomura¹⁴. By the early 2020s, observers noted that all the junkets in the big casinos had gone quiet, and some had closed their rooms entirely¹⁷. The Golden VIP rooms closed on March 30, 2022¹⁶.

Suncity's suspended operations and the 15-day casino closure

The pandemic delivered the first great shock. Macau's gaming and related entertainment businesses suspended operations for 15 days from 00:00 on February 5, 2020². The shutdown ran until February 19 inclusive²⁰, and it applied to every casino in the city; company filings describe it as the 15-day closure mandated by the Macau government in February 2020²¹.

The bigger blow came at the end of 2021, when Suncity's Macau VIP rooms closed across the board, as noted at the top of this page. In plain terms, the promoter arm that fed the whole machine had stopped, and the tourism arm that depended on it stopped with it. What followed was not a pause but the end of the model that had powered Macau's biggest years.

There was one more closure to come. In July 2022, the Macau government ordered casinos and all non-essential businesses to suspend operations from July 11 to July 18, 2022, to control a local outbreak, and the order was extended to July 22²². Casinos then resumed operations in stages from July 23 to July 30, 2022, with no more than 50% of casino staff on site at the same time²².

VIP hall operations after reopening

After the February 2020 closure, the VIP halls came back. Operators were given a period of up to 30 days to resume casino operations after the suspension order expired²⁰, and the BBC noted that operators were permitted to reopen after the 15-day shutdown, even if the city itself stayed quiet²³.

But the recovery did not restore the old world. The closures described above continued through 2021 and 2022, and the July 2022 shutdown added another interruption. When casinos resumed from July 23, 2022, they did so with half their staff, and with social distancing rules in place that reduced gaming table seats and the number of activated slot machines compared with pre-COVID-19 levels²². All of those social distancing requirements were lifted in early January 2023²², which is the clearest marker of when the casinos returned to something like normal operations.

The longer-term shift is visible in how new resorts opened. MGM Cotai's junket-run clubs opening months after the resort itself¹⁰ reflect a market where VIP play was no longer the automatic center of gravity. Premium players today are more likely to be hosted directly by the casino operators, in premium mass areas, than through a junket salon. For what that experience looks like now, see our pages on MGM Macau and the other casino operators.

Health measures at the reopened casinos

When the casinos reopened in February 2020, they did so under rules that would shape the visitor experience for nearly three years.

The basics came first. All workers and patrons at the city's casinos had to wear protective face masks²⁰, and the government set additional measures including adjusting the minimum distance between gaming tables²⁰. Operators reopening after the suspension had to follow Health Bureau guidelines: adjust table management and numbers, raise safety levels, measure body temperature, and require masks²⁴. Casinos confirmed they would open in phases once the suspension order expired at midnight on Thursday, February 20²⁵.

From the visitor's side, the Health Bureau conducted mandatory tests for each person entering a casino, along with personal health declarations, body-temperature checks, and face masks required on the gaming floor, on the bus, and in taxis³. Casinos also adjusted the minimum distance between gaming tables as an additional measure²⁰.

The rules then tightened in steps:

The testing regime could follow you home. People who spent over half an hour in a casino between October 27 and 29, 2022, had their Macao Health Code turned yellow, requiring one daily rapid antigen test declared via the health code, plus nucleic acid tests on days 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7; the code turned green on day 8 after a negative day-7 test²⁶.

All of this is history now. The social distancing rules ended in early January 2023²², and today's entry requirements are the ordinary ones covered in our page on casino entry rules in Macau. The casinos themselves are open 24 hours, as the tourism office notes, and many have restaurants serving international cuisine²⁸.

Suncity's presence beyond Macau: Manila's casino resorts

While the Macau story wound down, Suncity's footprint abroad was growing. The company said it was "present in all of the existing private-sector casino resorts in Manila"²⁹, and it opened a VIP club at Resorts World Manila²⁹.

That matters for two reasons. First, it shows how the junket model traveled: the same operator that ran salons in Macau could run them in the Philippines, serving the same customer base. Second, it explains where some of the VIP play went. Manila's Entertainment City built its high-roller business partly on the back of promoters whose home market was contracting. If you are based in Macau and curious about regional options, our page on gambling trips abroad from Macau covers the practical side of playing elsewhere.