Having watched dozens of her classmates drop out of their studies to pursue careers as casino card dealers, Isadora Leung can understand the attraction: impressive starting salaries, nice clothes, good apartments and what many describe as money to burn. 'The money is a huge drawcard and many people look at dealers and think they are rich,' said Ms Leung, who is doing a bachelor's degree in English and Chinese translation at the Macau Polytechnic Institute. 'They have nice things and to students it can really look like a good option, but I have never been tempted to follow a career on the casino floor,' said Ms Leung. She has one more year to complete the four-year degree and said she had her sights set on 'more'. 'There is just no way that I would do it, working as a dealer or in hospitality or something like that. I don't like the atmosphere, and I wouldn't like the shift work,' she said. 'The other reason is that I would not see it as a long-term career move. It might be good to get the money to start off with, but other careers can take you a lot further.' Being able to speak English and Putonghua, Ms Leung is hopeful of securing work in the government as a translator or in public relations. She chose to study translation because she thought that the career prospects were extremely good. Lao Sio-choi and Wong Ka-kei are in their final year of a law degree at the University of Macau, and both said that the career path they chose was a difficult one. They have many friends who have finished law and have either been unable to find work or have been lured by lucrative pay packets into working for casinos in areas such as human resources. 'Starting out as a lawyer, the salary is very low and so many would rather find better paying jobs in the casinos,' Ms Lao said. 'But if everyone is working in casinos there will be no new lawyers and that would be a bad thing for the future of Macau.' The women, both 22 years old, said their job prospects were made more difficult because Macau law was written in Portuguese. Ms Lao plans to move to Portugal to study the language further after graduating, while Ms Wong hopes to find a job in the public service, which she said would not be easy because such jobs were in high demand. 'As an absolute last resort I would take a job in a casino that did not involve law, but only if there were no other options,' Ms Wong said.