Macau’s Secretary for Economy and Finance Francis Tam Pak Yuen has said it’s possible the government will impose a cap on the growth of electronic gaming in the city’s booming casino market.
Speaking at a recent question-and-answer session in the Legislative Assembly, Tam also hinted that restrictions on the numbers of traditional live-dealer tables might continue after 2022 when the current 10-year annual cap expires.
His remarks came in response to a question from lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng as to why there was no cap on EGMs to mirror the 3 percent annual cap on the addition of conventional tables.
“We have actually started some studies on this, as the current slots are so much different from what we had in the past due to the rapid growth in the development of electronic gaming equipment,” he said. “We hope we can introduce to the public the government thoughts on this at an appropriate time.”
It wasn’t clear whether Tam was referring to a popular form of e-table that connects scores of individual player terminals in various configurations to a live dealer or to conventional slot-style machines. The live-dealer e-tables are proliferating rapidly as an affordably priced alternative to traditional mass-market tables whose limited numbers have sent minimum bets into the stratosphere in response to demand.
Tam said imposing growth limits on EGMs was not contemplated at the time the table cap was devised.
