Administrative Regulation No. 54/2022 enters into force

Macau's Administrative Regulation No. 54/2022 entered into force on 1 January 2023, the territory's Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) said. The regulation was signed on 7 December 2022 by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng and sets out the detailed rules for reducing or exempting concessionaires from the contributions they owe under Article 22(1)(2) and (3) of Law 16/2001, the legal framework for casino gaming operations¹.

The regulation lists two factors that may be considered, separately or together, when deciding on a reduction or exemption. The first is a concessionaire's development of foreign customer markets. The second is adverse effects on Macau's overall economy and on a concessionaire's operations caused by abnormal, unforeseeable or force majeure situations¹. "Foreign customers" are defined as people who enter Macau for tourism or business purposes and hold a travel document issued by a country or region outside the People's Republic of China¹. Concessionaires must identify these customers using measures approved by the DICJ¹.

Under the procedure, a concessionaire must apply to the DICJ and submit supporting documents and information. After consulting the Gaming Committee, the DICJ sends its recommendation to the Chief Executive, who decides, and the DICJ then notifies the concessionaire and the Financial Services Bureau¹. Where an application concerns only the foreign customer market factor, the DICJ calculates the reduction itself using specific criteria¹. The Chief Executive may also grant a reduction or exemption on his own initiative, based on the force majeure factor or other factors deemed worthy of consideration¹. The specific criteria for the foreign customer factor are to be set by a Chief Executive order published in the Official Gazette, after the Gaming Committee is consulted¹.

The regulation also covers recovery of wrongly granted relief. A concessionaire that makes a false declaration, provides incorrect or untrue documents or information, or uses any unlawful means to obtain a reduction must return the wrongly exempted amount within one month of being notified of the DICJ's decision, without prejudice to any legal liability¹. If it fails to do so, the DICJ notifies the Financial Services Bureau, which enforces collection under the tax execution procedure, using certification of that decision as the enforcement title¹. A concessionaire may apply to the DICJ for a refund of amounts overpaid because of a calculation error or other reasonable cause, submitting supporting documents for verification¹.

The DICJ is responsible for receiving and checking the documents and information submitted, including a database that concessionaires must set up to store the documents and information submitted for relief purposes¹. The Financial Services Bureau handles the financial side, including returns and refunds¹. Personal data may be processed and verified under Law 8/2005, the Personal Data Protection Act, including through data interconnection¹.

What it means for players

The regulation does not change the rules of any game, the tax on winnings or the legal age to gamble in Macau. It concerns the contributions that concessionaires pay out of gross gaming revenue, and the circumstances in which those contributions can be cut. For players, the practical effect is indirect: it gives the operators an incentive to bring in customers who hold travel documents from outside mainland China, since developing foreign customer markets is one of the two grounds for relief. How that is measured, and what specific criteria apply, has not been reported; the regulation leaves the detail to a separate Chief Executive order. The rules on identifying foreign customers, and the database concessionaires must keep, mean more data collection at the operator level, subject to Macau's personal data law.

What happens next

The specific criteria for the foreign customer market factor are to be set by a Chief Executive order published in the Official Gazette, after the Gaming Committee is consulted¹. No date for that order has been reported.