Gambling in Macau
overview of gambling in Macau
Macau, a special administrative region of China, is the only place in China where casinos are legal. Gambling has been legal since the 1850s when the Portuguese government legalised the activity in the autonomous colony. After the handover of Macau from Portugal to China, Macau and the business has grown at a high pace since 2001, when the government ended the four-decade gambling monopoly of the Hong Kong billionaire Stanley Ho. With the entry of large foreign casinos from Las Vegas and Australia, Macau overtook the Las Vegas Strip in gambling revenues in 2007. Since then, Macau has become known worldwide as the "gambling capital of the world", grossing the highest amount of gambling/gaming revenue and greatly dwarfing all the other gambling centers/cities.
Gambling tourism is Macau's biggest source of revenue, making up about 50% of the economy, and gaming taxes making up 75% of Macau's government revenue. Visitors are largely from mainland China and Hong Kong.
History
In an attempt to generate revenues for the government, gambling in Macau was legalized by the Portuguese government in 1849. In the late 19th century, the government introduced a licensing system for the fantan houses (Chinese gambling houses). It is reported that over 200 gambling houses were required to pay gambling rent to the government.
“Gambling in Macau” enters the record as overview of gambling in Macau. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gambling, Macau and overview can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gambling in Macau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.