Shady dealings: triads ‘play major role’ in high-rolling Macau VIP casino rooms
Triads still dominate VIP rooms in Macau, and they have now extensive networks with mainland officials, junkets, high rollers, investors and criminals
A gangland reputation, financial clout and the ability to recover debts by whatever means necessary – that’s what it takes to run a high-rolling VIP operation in a Macau casino, according to an in-depth academic study.
After three years of research, leading sociologist T. Wing Lo and fellow academic Sharon Ingrid Kwok of Hong Kong’s City University reached conclusions which lend academic weight to the widely held belief that organised crime is at the heart of the gaming industry in the former Portuguese enclave.
For the work, published in the respected British Journal of Criminology and titled “Triad Organized Crime in Macau Casinos: Extra-Legal Governance and Entrepreneurship”, the Hong Kong academics interviewed triad members, police, government officials and casino VIP room operators.
The lengthy paper comes as Macau’s junket operators are on the back foot amid an economic slowdown on the mainland and a corruption crackdown by Beijing. But it reveals the often shady businesses which bring in casino high-rollers have a keen ability to adapt to changing circumstances and in some cases are being usurped by mainland operators.
“The VIP-room operations are still dominated by triads to date,” the academicsconcluded. “But they have readjusted their traditional intrusive role and reinvented harmonious business strategies to suit the market reality.”
According to the study, which focuses on the embattled casino junket business, junket companies responsible for running VIP rooms in Macau “are the main drivers of economic profits for the triads”.