Macau's Gaming-Related Crime Rises 12.3% in Nine Months as Casino STRs Climb 7.9%

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.

• Macau police recorded 1,951 gaming-related crimes in the first nine months of 2026, up 12.3% from 1,737 a year earlier, according to statistics published by the Office of the Secretary for Security on 9 October
• Gaming-related fraud rose 21.3% to 558 cases and illegal money exchange for gambling rose 11.9% to 404, while loan-sharking for gambling fell 12.6% to 132 and related unlawful detention fell 57.1% to nine
• Total crime under criminal investigation fell 0.9% to 9,966 cases, so gaming-related cases rose against a falling overall total
• Casino operators filed 2,968 suspicious transaction reports (STRs) in the period, up 7.9%, but their share of all STRs fell to 71.7% from 73.3%, according to the Financial Intelligence Office
• Both counts rose in a quarter when Macau's GGR fell year on year in every month, and gaming STRs remain below the 3,041 filed in the same period of 2024

Fraud and Money Exchange Push Gaming Crime Up as Overall Crime Falls

Macau police recorded 1,951 gaming-related crimes between January and September 2026, 214 more than the 1,737 recorded a year earlier, an increase of 12.3%, according to the crime statistics the Office of the Secretary for Security published on 9 October. Over the same period total cases under criminal investigation fell 0.9% to 9,966, and the office said serious violent crime, fraud, theft and drug offences were all down across the city as a whole.

Fraud is the largest gaming-related category, with 558 cases, up 21.3% from 460; its 98 additional cases account for almost half of the overall increase. Operating illegal money exchange for gambling, an offence created by Law No. 20/2024 on combating illegal gambling crimes, rose 11.9% to 404 cases. Assaults linked to gaming rose 26.6% to 81, gaming-related theft rose 3.6% to 144 and misappropriation rose 19.4% to 154. The statistics do not say what kinds of fraud the cases involve.

Two categories the office describes as having previously had a serious effect on public order moved the other way. Usury, meaning illegal lending for gambling, fell 12.6% to 132 cases, and related unlawful detention fell 57.1% to nine from 21. Breaches of casino entry bans fell 42.2% to 63.

The quarterly releases show the trend firming rather than fading. Gaming-related crime was up 3.2% in the first quarter and 12.2% in the first half; by iGaming Times' arithmetic the third quarter alone recorded 673 cases against 598, up 12.5%. Illegal money exchange cases fell 9.8% in the first quarter but rose to 145 in the third, against 121 a year earlier. The office also reported that police dismantled a criminal group made up of security guards working for leisure companies in July, arresting 15 alleged key members including the suspected leader over offences including secret-society crimes, extortion and coercion, and that the Judiciary Police took down more than 77,000 illegal gambling websites through a liaison mechanism with the gaming industry.

Casino STRs Rise While Their Share Falls

The Financial Intelligence Office of the Unitary Police Service received 4,138 STRs in the first three quarters, up 10.3% from 3,752, according to figures it published on 9 October. Games of fortune operators filed 2,968 of them, up 7.9% from 2,751, or 71.7% of the total against 73.3% a year earlier. Financial institutions and insurers filed 839, up 6.3%, and other institutions 331, up 56.1%, lifting their share to 8.0% from 5.7%. The office passed 94 STRs to the Public Prosecutions Office in the period, against 118 in the whole of 2025.

On the office's earlier releases, casino STRs for January to September stood at 866 in 2022, 2,335 in 2023 and 3,041 in 2024 before falling to 2,751 in 2025. The 2026 figure has recovered most of that fall but remains 2.4% below the 2024 level.

The Money-Exchange Count Measures Enforcement as Much as Activity

Illegal money exchange for gambling was not a crime until Law No. 20/2024 took effect at the end of October 2024, according to the Macao government. Police recorded 89 cases in the remainder of that year, 471 in 2025 and 404 in the first nine months of 2026, under a provision that carries up to five years in prison and reaches exchanges in casinos and the public areas of integrated resorts, according to an analysis of the law by law firm MdME reported by Asia Gaming Brief. A rising count two years in is evidence that police are still finding and charging the money changers, not evidence that the trade is growing; the statistics cannot separate the two. What they do show is that criminalisation has not yet cleared the trade from around the casinos, and the third-quarter rise suggests the pressure is being kept up.

The Junket-Era Crimes Are Fading, Fraud Has Taken Their Place

Loan-sharking and detention were the signature offences of a market built on junket credit. Since 1 January 2023 junkets have been barred from sharing casino revenue, and since 1 August 2024 only concessionaires may extend gaming credit, according to Asia Gaming Brief. On the office's figures, usury cases fell from 252 in 2024 to 194 in 2025 and 132 in nine months this year, and detention from 47 to 28 to nine. Credit has not vanished: it has moved to the concessionaires, and collecting it can end up in a foreign court, as Venetian Macau's failed attempt to enforce a casino debt in Singapore showed. The growth is in fraud, which now makes up 28.6% of gaming-related crime, and the published tables do not break it down.

More Reports on Less Revenue Is the Number to Watch

Third-quarter GGR fell about 3.8% year on year, while casino STRs filed in the quarter rose to 950 from 895, about 6.1%, on iGaming Times' arithmetic from the office's half-year and nine-month figures. Reporting does not have to track revenue, and a rise in filings can reflect tighter operator compliance as easily as more suspicious activity. But only 94 reports from all sectors went to prosecutors in nine months, so the filings are, for now, a measure of how much operators flag rather than how much is proven.

Macau's security authorities describe public order as stable, and outside the casinos crime is falling. Inside them, the old crimes of credit are giving way to fraud and illicit exchange, and the figures do not yet show whether enforcement is gaining on either.