Macau’s casino-related crime spikes in 2015

Casino-related crime in Macau jumped in 2015 despite a fall in non-gaming criminal activities.

On Tuesday, Macau Judicial Police (PJ) director Chau Wai Kwong told Radio Macau that the world’s top casino market reported 1,563 criminal cases related to the gaming industry in 2015. That’s a 38% increase over 2014, which was itself up 16.3% from 2013’s total.

The biggest jump in gambling-related criminality came in cases of “kidnapping resulting from loan sharking to play,” which went from 65 cases in 2014 to 366 last year. While the confinements were blamed on local junket operators, this 463% increase in forced confinement reflects junket reports of increased difficulty in collecting gambling debts as China’s economy worsens.

Non-custodial gambling-related loansharking was also up dramatically, with the number of cases rising 56% to 318. In total, the PJ arrested 1,737 people for gaming-related crime in 2015, over half of which (996) were related to loan sharking.