Macau has appointed a legal prosecutor as the new head of the city-state’s gambling regulator.

On Friday, Macau’s Secretary for Economic and Finance Lionel Leong Vai Tac named assistant public prosecutor-general Paulo Martin Chan as the new director of the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) effective Dec. 1.

Chan replaces the outgoing Manuel Joquim das Neves, who announced last month that he would step down on Nov. 25 from the role he’s occupied for the past 18 years. Das Neves has been the only man to hold the DICJ’s reins of power since Macau liberalized its casino market in the early part of the last decade.

Leong said Chan was a good choice to take over due to his legal background and his fluency in both Chinese and Portuguese, as the latter language is still widely used in Macau’s legal environment, a legacy of Macau’s history as a Portuguese colony.