Looking back at the 16-year development of responsible gambling in Macau, how exactly has this system promoted the sustainable growth of the gaming industry while maintaining social stability and public well-being?
Gambling should not be about killing the goose that lays the golden egg but more about positioning the pastime as a form of entertainment. Players should ultimately be able to resume their daily lives and return for more entertainment when the time is right.
In this regard, responsible gambling is often misinterpreted by the public as telling people not to gamble at all. However, Professor Davis Fong, Director of the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau, argues that gambling is prevalent worldwide.
What public policies can truly achieve is “not eliminating gambling, but reducing the risk of addiction and its associated social costs”, thereby reframing gambling back to its essential role as “entertainment”.
“Responsible gambling does not aim to eradicate gambling activities; instead, it encourages people to gamble rationally and refrain from treating gambling as a means of making a living,” Fong tells IAG.
The policy logic is one of “shared responsibility”.
Professor Fong has been engaged in responsible gambling research since 2007. He recalled that the relevant work originated from the government’s policy needs, “Back then, the Macao SAR Government led by Edmund Ho Hau Wah commissioned the University of Macau to conduct research, which formed the policy framework in 2008 and was included in the Policy Address for the first time in 2009. Since then, it has remained a key component of the annual Policy Address.
“When designing Macau’s institutional framework, the research team drew on responsible gambling models from Australia, Canada, the United States and other regions, and then adapted these experiences to suit Macau’s social structure and industry characteristics.”
However, Fong pointed out that there are significant differences between the Macau model and many Western models.
In some Western regions, after gambling addiction issues arise, policies tend to place the primary responsibility on casinos, with the government intervening mainly as a regulator. However, the situation in Macau is more complex.
“The gaming industry is a pillar industry, accounting for an extremely high proportion of the economic structure and supporting a large number of jobs,” Fong stated. When the industry’s impact has spread across society, shifting the entire burden of risk governance to enterprises may easily lead to gaps in resources, coverage and public trust.
Therefore, responsible gambling in Macau adopts “shared responsibility” as its core principle, clearly defining five stakeholders: the government, gamblers and their family members, gaming operators, gambling addiction prevention and treatment institutions, as well as educational and other community organizations. Through multi-stakeholder participation, the policy focus has shifted from “single-point remediation” to “systematic governance”, covering prevention, identification, referral and follow-up support.
Addiction rate drops from 6% to 0.8%
Macau’s promotion of responsible gambling is not just a theoretical concept; it has designed a trackable evaluation mechanism.
“The context for the Macau government’s proposing of responsible gambling back then was a social backdrop featuring a ‘high gambling participation rate and a high addiction rate’,” Fong noted.
He recalled that in the early years, the estimated gambling addiction rate in Macau was around 6%, and the gambling participation rate peaked at approximately two-thirds of the population. Even though the participation rate declined slightly afterward, the addiction rate remained at a relatively high level.
In terms of indicator definition, the “gambling participation rate” is defined as “having gambled with money at least once”, covering all money-related gambling activities including casino gaming, lotteries and sports betting.
To track long-term trends, Macau has established a periodic monitoring system, conducting surveys every three years to track the proportion of the population participating in gambling, the addiction rate, and at the same time assessing public awareness of responsible gambling. Fong pointed out that since the launch of publicity and education initiatives in 2009, the overall participation rate has continued to decline, standing at around 40% to 50% in recent years; the addiction rate has also dropped from about 6% to a figure of approximately 0.8% for last year, representing a significant change.
As the addiction rate decreases, the policy focus has been further extended to encompass “whether society truly understands responsible gambling”. Therefore, two additional indicators have been incorporated into responsible gambling assessments: “awareness rate” – whether citizens have “heard of responsible gambling” – and a more stringent “understanding rate”, which uses a set of questions to test respondents’ in-depth knowledge of the concept, risks and help-seeking channels.
Fong said that the research team uses 18 questions for assessment, and only those who answer 16 or more correctly are considered to have reached the “understanding” level. The results show that the awareness rate has increased from around 10% in the early stages of the research to approximately 65% to 66% in recent years, while the “understanding rate” stands at about 40%.
Reframing gambling as entertainment
Billy Song, President of the Macau Responsible Gambling Association, believes that a key focus of responsible gambling is to “reframe gambling as entertainment” and enable people to truly “understand gambling”.
“Like the core concepts of ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) and sustainable development that have been frequently mentioned in recent years, responsible gambling is not about telling people not to play, but about returning gambling to its position as entertainment consumption rather than a tool for making money,” he explained.
Song shared that when the association engages with the public, it does encounter people who view gambling as an investment or a way to turn their fortunes around. Therefore, the primary goal of educating gamblers is to correct this mindset, “Understand gambling, recognize the risks and treat gambling as a form of entertainment just like watching movies or concerts.”
Promoting responsible gambling through legislation
Beyond publicity and promotion, Macau’s emphasis on responsible gambling has even led to amendments to laws.
In 2011, Macau passed the Bill Regulating the Conditioning of Entry, Work, and Gaming in Casinos, raising the minimum age for casino entry from 18 to 21. Fong pointed out that this is exactly the direction guided by responsible gambling research.
“Back then, there was a social trend where young people dropped out of school to engage in the gaming industry prematurely. Raising the entry age was regarded as a responsible gambling policy,” he said.
Complementary to the age threshold is the “voluntary self-exclusion” mechanism – anyone can voluntarily apply for a ban on entering local casinos, which can last up to two years and be renewed. Once approved, entering a casino during the ban period constitutes a violation of the order.
In addition, regulations related to responsible gambling have been extended to various areas, including restrictions on civil servants entering casinos and the disciplinary consequences, the casino smoking ban system, as well as entry restrictions for gaming industry employees (officially implemented at the end of 2019).
In 2022, Macau’s new gaming concession contracts further incorporated responsible gambling into their contractual terms. Responsible gambling is no longer just a declaration of government advocacy and enterprise cooperation; it has become a key requirement enshrined in gaming laws and concession contracts.
“Gaming enterprises are required to continuously implement relevant work in accordance with annual plans; otherwise, they will face compliance issues. This means that responsible gambling in Macau has become a legal and contractual requirement for gaming concessionaires,” Fong said.
The next phase of policy focus
Since the pandemic, the number of tourists visiting Macau has been on the rise, hitting a record high of over 40 million in 2025. The target audience of responsible gambling seems to be gradually shifting from local residents to tourists.
Fong shared that his research team began exploring ways to more effectively convey messages to tourists around 2017.
“Research found that some mainland Chinese tourists view gambling as an ‘investment activity’, and even perceive gambling in Macau as an opportunity to recoup losses or change their lives, which is clearly inconsistent with the framework of ‘entertainment consumption’,” he explained.
However, after a period of time, it was found that in reality, it is difficult to carry out effective responsible gambling publicity targeting tourists.
“The core challenge of promotion lies in the high mobility of tourists – with a large and constantly changing pool of visitors, publicity efforts confined to Macau’s borders can hardly form continuous and repeated reminders,” Fong said.
Song also believes that tourists will be one of the main targets of Macau’s responsible gambling publicity in the future.
“Many tourists may not have been exposed to gambling-related information in their places of origin and are even more unfamiliar with the risks and help-seeking channels,” he observed. “When tourists enter Macau and encounter the casino environment for the first time without sufficient reminders, they are prone to misunderstandings and may even regard gambling as a way to make money.
“One of the future work directions is to place responsible gambling messages earlier and closer to the touchpoints of tourists, so that they know how to seek help if problems arise.”
Fong added, “With the full recovery of Macau’s tourism industry, the focus of responsible gambling will, while maintaining publicity and promotion among local residents, be more explicitly directed at tourists. This will be the most noteworthy development direction in the coming period.”
