Gaming analysts once warned that China’s anti-corruption drive and efforts to curb capital outflows would spell the end of Macau’s junket business. In 2024, Macao News quoted industry insiders who said the “sun was setting on junket operators,” suggesting the sector was nearing extinction.
Despite those predictions, the junket industry has endured. For 2026, Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance has approved 29 gaming promoters to operate in the city. This represents a 21% increase from 2025, which began with 24 licensed operators. Even so, the total remains well below the regulatory cap of 50 and far fewer than the 235 junkets active in 2014.
Decline of a once-dominant industry
The traditional junket business began to unravel as Beijing intensified its crackdown on corruption, capital outflows, and efforts by gamblers to evade foreign-exchange controls. The decline was accelerated by two major legal cases in 2023.
That year, a Chinese court convicted Alvin Chau, founder of Macau’s largest junket operator, Suncity, on more than 100 charges related to illegal gambling and organised crime. Known as the “junket king,” Chau was found to have facilitated HK$823.7 billion in undeclared wagers, depriving casinos and the government of HK$8.26 billion in tax revenue. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
In the same year, Levo Chan, head of rival junket Tak Chun, was also convicted on 34 counts including organised crime, illegal gambling, and money laundering. Authorities found that he enabled under-the-table betting that defrauded casinos of HK$35 billion and cost the government an estimated HK$8.6 billion in lost taxes. Chan received a 14-year prison sentence.
By 2024, the number of active junkets in Macau had fallen to just 18, leading JP Morgan analyst DS Kim to describe the traditional junket model as “a thing of the past.”
A new definition of junkets in Macau
Under Macau’s 2023 gaming law, each junket promoter is permitted to work with only one of the city’s six casino concessionaires, though concessionaires may engage multiple junkets. Revenue-sharing arrangements have been eliminated, with promoters instead receiving a fixed commission of 1.25% on rolling-chip turnover. The revised law also prohibits junkets from extending casino credit and bars them from independently operating VIP rooms, which were once central to illegal betting activities.
These changes have reshaped VIP gaming performance. In 2025, VIP baccarat revenue reached approximately HK$66 billion, representing a nearly 25% increase year-on-year. However, it accounted for just 27.48% of total gaming revenue, significantly lower than the 46.24% share recorded in 2019. Looking ahead to 2026, JP Morgan forecasts growth of 7% to 8% in mass-market and slot gaming revenue, while VIP revenue is expected to decline by around 5%.
As regulations tighten in Macau, junket operators seeking more favorable conditions have reportedly shifted operations to jurisdictions with looser oversight. Speaking at last year’s G2E Asia conference, attorney Luis Mesquita de Melo described Vietnam as “an emerging jurisdiction” for such activity.
“In Vietnam, junkets operate under the label of international tour operators or travel operators, but in substance they are the same junkets long associated with Macau,” said Mesquita de Melo, who is general counsel at Hoiana Resort & Golf in Hoi An. “The lack of regulation places these operations in a grey area, raising serious regulatory and compliance concerns.”
