The Macau SAR Government will sign new 10-year gaming contracts with the city’s six concessionaires this Friday, the culmination of a consequential year for the gaming industry involving major changes to the Macau gaming law and an intense public re-tender process.
The signing of contracts comes after the current six concessionaires were all provisionally awarded new concessions late last month, beating out a challenge from a seventh bidder linked to Genting Malaysia.
IAG understands the government has organized press conferences on Saturday at which the leaders of all six concessionaires will appear and discuss their plans for the 10 years of the new concession.
The six companies set to sign, in the order they were placed in the tender process, are MGM Grand Paradise, Galaxy Casino, Venetian Macau, Melco Resorts (Macau), Wynn Resorts (Macau) and SJM Resorts.
As reported by IAG, the concessionaires have spent the past few weeks ensuring they fully comply with Macau’s new gaming law, which among other stipulations requires the operators to increase the share capital of their concession holding entities to MOP$5 billion. At least 15% of shares in the concession-holding entity must also be held by a Macau-based Managing Director – up from 10% under the old law.
The new 10-year concessions take effect from 1 January 2023.
