Asia Gaming Brief

Macau's casinos won 10% less in October than a year earlier, the fifth monthly decline in a row and the second steepest of the year, even as the National Day holiday brought more than a million visitors. Year-to-date growth is down to 1.6%, but the government's budget figure is still well within reach.

Australia's media regulator has formally warned two former Brisbane Lions players for promoting Vegastars, an offshore casino it had already ordered blocked. It is the second time this year ACMA has chosen a warning over a civil penalty for an athlete-influencer, and the promotions ran after the block was in place.

Police in South Chungcheong say they have dismantled the top of a pyramid that bought live casino feeds and game credits from overseas game companies, built sites in minutes and leased them to operators from offices in Vietnam and Cambodia. The companies, described as operating legally abroad, are not named.

Grand Korea Leisure's president put a number on the Osaka threat at the National Assembly this week, then corrected it: about a quarter of its Japanese revenue, or 5% to 10% of the total. An industry study presented the same day put the hit to Korea's foreigner-only casinos far higher.

Macau's Prosecutor General says the offence created in 2024 to drive money changers from the casinos is hard to prove, because police often catch a suspect on what can be shown only as a first exchange. He wants objective criteria or a legal presumption, a fix that would make convictions easier and the defence harder.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency has suspended Stefan Milićević until 2050 for fixing matches and recruiting other players into a corrupt network. No hearing was held: the player did not respond to the charges, so the sanction the agency proposed took effect by default.

SkyCity Entertainment Group has signed a binding agreement to sell The Grand Hotel in Auckland for NZ$221 million, about $124 million, to two companies from a privately owned property group. With the office sale already settled, it says it has now raised more from asset sales than it promised shareholders, but the deal still needs Overseas Investment Office consent.

The Philippine operator behind BingoPlus and ArenaPlus says it dropped out of the last rounds of New Zealand's auction for the right to apply for an online casino licence, citing "market values". It is the second overseas plan to stall in a month, after Brazil's ban.

Japan's tourism ministry says the Osaka integrated resort still meets the required standards, but for a third year it finds the demand forecasts have only been checked, not reworked. Those forecasts still promise 20 million visitors a year, while the planned initial investment has risen by 40% since the plan was first filed.

Police recorded 1,951 gaming-related crimes in Macau between January and September, while casino operators filed 2,968 suspicious transaction reports, both up on a year earlier even as overall crime fell and gaming revenue weakened through the third quarter. Fraud and illegal money exchange drove the rise; the loan-sharking and detention cases of the junket era kept falling.

Genting Berhad wants RM1.25 billion, approximately $306 million, from shareholders to pay down borrowings that have climbed to RM45.25 billion. The Lim family has committed its 45% share; the rest is not yet underwritten, and Maybank Investment Bank says this may not be the last call on investors.

The Iris Capital vehicle that took 85.77% of the owner of Cairns' Reef Hotel Casino at A$3.87 a unit is now offering the holdouts A$4.67 and saying it will delist the trust if it can. On the bidder's own share count, one investor with 9.84% decides whether it can force the rest out.

The Curaçao Gaming Authority will not bring back the portal a hacker used for nine months, and is ending the service arrangements behind it. The seal that lets anyone check a Curaçao-licensed domain is affected too, and its replacement has not yet been published.

Task forces of regulators, police, immigration and labour officials and prosecutors will start inspecting licensed casinos this month, Cambodia's state news agency reports. The government now calls unlicensed online gambling a form of scam, and says it will prosecute it as one.

A former coal-mining town in Fukuoka says it will hand the prefecture an integrated resort proposal this month and wants the prefectural assembly to take it up in December. Under Japan's IR law the town cannot apply itself, and the prefecture has not said it will.

Galaxy Entertainment Group's chairman bought 4.6 million shares for cash on the first trading day after Macau's weakest monthly gaming revenue of the year, paying less than the stock traded for on the exchange that day. The filing shows the price; it does not show who sold.

Paradise Co's four foreigner-only casinos took more in the third quarter than in any quarter before it, even though customers bought fewer chips than in the second. Grand Korea Leisure recovered in September, but its quarter was barely ahead of last year's.

Lotte Tour Development drew a record 66,393 casino visitors to Jeju Dream Tower in September and kept the smallest share of their table play in almost three years. Its two listed rivals grew in the same month, and the company is calling it a run of bad luck that October will correct.

Macau's casinos won MOP18.06 billion in September, 1.2% less than a year earlier and 17.5% less than in August: the fourth monthly decline in a row and the weakest month of the year. It came in below a comparison base that a typhoon had already cut, and almost exactly at the figure Citigroup cut its forecast to ten days ago. It was published on the first day of Golden Week.

Camarines Sur representative Arnie Fuentebella told colleagues the application has been "neither approved nor disapproved", contradicting the interior secretary, who said last week it had been denied. Roque is wanted at home on non-bailable trafficking charges tied to a former offshore gaming hub.

The State Department says Southeast Asian criminal organisations including Prince Group defrauded Americans of at least $18.2bn in 2025, nearly double the 2024 estimate. It has not named the 32. The same day, Cambodia said its major scam compounds have been cleared and the networks have moved to smaller sites.

The second tranche of the Casino Control (Amendment) Act took effect on 21 September: the GRA can now weigh unethical conduct and systemic control failures when deciding whether Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa remain fit to hold a licence, the two must exchange patron information for financial-crime control, and cashing out a bet after the result is known is a crime.

Two weeks after calling September up 12%, Citigroup's analysts watched the tables on Friday and saw 401 premium-mass players betting HK$6.8 million, "among the worst in recent history". The forecast is now MOP18 billion, implying a 4% fall for the quarter, with the caveat that Golden Week may simply be absorbing the trips.

The ratings agency expects the operator to hold 40% to 50% of legal online gaming for two years, with the second player at 15% to 20%. It also says the risk of regulatory intervention is "higher in the Philippines than other jurisdictions", cites the e-wallet delinking that cut DigiPlus revenue 23% in a quarter, and flags Senate bills that could ban the product outright. The central bank added a new one today.