Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAPAN MAY 2020 70 is no regulatory gold standard. If there was, every jurisdiction would be doing it, or aspiring to. Secondly, neither jurisdiction has the luxury of a large, diversified economic base; pragmatism requires them to be rather more expansive and progressive in their approach to their principal industry. That doesn’t mean abandoning standards, rather working co-operatively with the regulated to progressively lift them. Macau’s most recent AML Mutual Evaluation is testament to the wisdom of this approach. Regulation 6/2002 came into force in Macau when GGR attributable to junket business was in excess of 70% of all casino GGR. Heavy-handed regulation and a high bar for suitability could conceivably have brought down the SAR, and left China with a problem it could not easily address. In part, this explains the PRC’s continuous exhortations to the SAR to diversify its economic base … clearly easier said than done, given little obvious progress has been made in the past 10 years. Finally, to tax considerations. Law 16/2001 introduced the concept of a withholding tax on junket commissions. Junket remuneration received by way of a share of GGR enjoys an exemption from income tax, due to the fact that gross revenue is taxed in the hands of the concessionaire deriving it. While the full 5% has never been adopted, the point of the withholding was to accustom the junket operators to the discipline of being taxed on their earnings, at the time a novel concept. As someone involved intimately in the set up and execution of this regime, it would be tempting to go defensive. I don’t need to do more than cite history and the responses adopted to the hand dealt to Macau. The current regulatory regime has delivered results consistent with context, circumstance and the public interest of the people of both Macau and arguably the PRC, which has had none of the issues it has experienced with the Hong Kong SAR. I reckon that makes for good law, just as there are other good gaming laws as pertain in Nevada and Singapore: they speak to their origins and respective public interests, and allow pragmatism a role. The current regulatory regime has delivered results consistent with context, circumstance and the public interest of the people of both Macau and arguably the PRC. 現在の規制制度は、背景や状況、マカオ人と ほぼ間違いなく中国両方の公共の利益に一 致する結果を届けてきた。 COLUMNISTS