Dore junket to shut Wynn Macau VIP room, more junket casualties expected

Macau casino junket operator Dore Entertainment Co Ltd is closing one of its VIP gaming rooms at the Wynn Macau casino following an internal theft scandal.

Dore made headlines around the world last month after word spread that a Dore cage manager had made off with a significant amount of investor cash. Original reports put the total sum stolen as high as HKD 2b (US $258m), while Dore claimed the actual amount was only HKD 100m, although subsequent reports have pegged the figure closer to HKD 700m.

Regardless, the scandal prompted Dore to reconsider the scope of its junket operations in Macau. Over the weekend, Macau media reported that Dore had decided to shutter two of its three VIP rooms at the Wynn Resorts property by the end of October. On Monday, GGRAsia reported that Wynn Macau had confirmed that Dore would be shutting a single VIP room “in accordance with Dore’s plan to scale down their business operations.”

The Dore scandal panicked many junket investors into withdrawing their funds, putting further pressure on an industry already suffering a liquidity crunch. Last week, Macau’s government imposed stricter accounting rules on junket operators in a bid to improve transparency of a notoriously opaque sector.