Search results

The purpose of this study is to summarize the factors that result in V-shape rebound of Macau gambling industry's from 2014 to 2019. Both internal and external factors are examined and discussed by representatives from academia, industry and government.

Practitioners from the gambling industry offered their cutting-edged analysis and viewpoints with observation and comments from scholars and government representatives in gambling domain.

Internally, actions are taken by both the Macau government and Macau casino operators to rebrand Macau with nongambling elements and to adjust the strategies to attract more tourists from a wider range. Externally, global economic upturn and support from the China government also enhance Macau's quick rebound. A total of nine key factors are finally recognized.

This study provides answers and sense-making explanations to why Macau gambling industry can recover in such a short time after a big drop in Gross Gambling Revenue in 2014. This work reveals that Macau, by learning the lessons from the dramatic decline, conducts various self-rescue action plans which contribute to the quick V-shape rebound. This study is also a self-examination of Macau gambling industry from the firsthand perspectives of scholars, government representatives and casino management.

Gambling is used to raise public funds through taxes, fees and direct contributions. The rent generated can be distributed through two basic models: absorbing the surplus into state budgets and institutions, or channeling funds to civil society organizations (CSOs). However, gambling also causes negative externalities. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how the beneficiaries of gambling in two societies representing these opposite models respond to the moral issue of accepting funds from a source that causes harm to some.

The analysis is conducted by applying the moral disengagement (MD) model to qualitative interviews conducted with beneficiaries of gambling in Finland and France. In Finland, the majority of gambling revenue is redistributed to CSOs, who also exercise a strong influence and are heavily involved in the system. In France, most gambling proceeds are directed to the central state, making other beneficiaries less powerful.

The results of this paper show that in France, where the state is a strong beneficiary, other actors express more political awareness and debate than in the Finnish model in which CSOs benefit and are tightly implicated in the system. On the other hand, the involvement of Finnish actors in the system encouraged them to accept moral responsibility for the harm caused by gambling.

The paper provides policymakers information on beneficiaries’ implication and position in different types of models of dividing the rent of gambling, and the academic audience with a comparative and sociological application of the MD model.

This study initiated an investigation of how the Macau–Zhuhai tourism cooperated and discussed how Macau and Zhuhai could join hands to develop tourism in the region. The study demonstrated an approach for destination marketing organizations to explore online tourist-generated content and to understand tourists' perceptions of the destination image (DI).

A total of 1,291,057 reviews (535,317 for Macau and 755,740 for Zhuhai) were collected, analyzed and examined to determine how the DI s of Macau and Zhuhai changed during the period of 2015–2019 based on tourist-generated content on travel websites (TripAdvisor, Ctrip.com and Qyer.com) through a text-mining approach.

The result revealed that Macau and Zhuhai were in a hybrid of competition and collaboration on tourism DI s. First, Macau and Zhuhai competed in hotel and catering industry. Macau was appealing to international tourists and provided high-end and prestigious offerings; while Zhuhai was impressed by cost-effective accommodation and food. Second, Macau diversified industrial structure with diverse “Tourism, Leisure and Recreation” and “Culture, History and Art” more than Zhuhai did. Meanwhile, Macau should balance the different demands of international and Chinese tourists. Third, complementary potentials were found in natural resources, urbanization technology and tourism innovation and related projects.

The research provides valuable insights for policymakers and industrial managers on their endeavors to develop DIs. Policymakers should be able to develop supportive mechanisms and tourism facilitators to promote industrial collaboration and mutual DIs. Managers could refer to the components in the changing DIs and identify the developmental gaps and cooperation potentials in their targeted areas.

The research fulfills the gap in regional tourism studies on Macau, in which the evaluation on synergetic influence and neighbor effect from Zhuhai has been underexplored. Facilitated by up-to-date data mining techniques, the study contributes to both DI and coopetition literature in tourism marketing; and this should inspire further studies on the antecedences of DI changes, resolutions to the competing interests and DIs of different stakeholders in different forms of strategic cooperation in regional tourism. The employment of DIs is an explicit demonstration of tourists' immersion and values attached to the destination, providing effective cues on the status of coopetition.

The viewpoints from industry briefly review the success in last decade, analyze what challenges and difficulties came across currently and forecast opportunities/development in next decade of Macau gambling industry. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Practitioners from banking and gambling industries offered their cutting-edged analysis and viewpoints with scholars’ observation.

Macroeconomic and political factors in China are the principal direct cause of Macau’s gambling revenue decline in 2014, implicating the vulnerability and unsustainability associated with the VIP business model of gambling industry. Although Macau continues to face challenges since late 2014, the prospect of Macau gambling industry is still optimistic in the long term, as there are emerging positive catalysts which will boost demand. From casino operators’ perspective, they should continue to try to increase revenue from mass market and non-gambling business by relocating the resource and adding more non-gambling amenities.

This paper provides a fresh perspective, and a new line of thinking with regard to how gambling industry in Macau will develop in next decade since 2015. It therefore potentially directs a new path of research in the area.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the efficiency of Greek fixed-odds (offline) betting market as offered by OPAP for the period 2016–2019.

Using a four-year data sample of OPAP's opening and closing odds for football matches from all over the world and applying linear probability and probit models, the market efficiency is examined and the existence of possible anomalies is investigated.

The main findings of research suggest that although the odds are dominated primarily by favorite-longshot bias and secondarily by draw bias, this mispricing cannot prove profitable. However, the opening odds, the margin levels and the market structure provide information that is not fully captured by the closing odds, giving bettors profit opportunities. Thus, findings show that the semi-strong market efficiency is questionable. Finally, competition reduces commissions leading to more efficient odds.

The conclusions of this study are useful for football betting market and, particularly, for government authorities, bookmakers and bettors. Findings can be extended in future research to prediction tasks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study about the Greek football betting market. The contribution to the literature lies on the one hand in the examination of a monopolistic land-based betting market, which is being squeezed and threatened by the more competitive online betting market, and on the other hand in the simultaneous examination of the opening and closing odds.

This study aims to explore how the economic recession and some corporate governance (CG) provisions can affect the performance of Italian gambling small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across different business segments.

This study uses a panel sample of 2,135 observations before and during the global financial crisis. Specifically, the roles of ownership, boards of directors, chief executive officer gender and gambling business segments are investigated in the Italian gambling market.

Ownership concentration has a negative relationship with the performance of foreigner- and financial-owned firms, while boards exert a positive role on performance. Interestingly, the financial crisis does not impact the performance of Italian gambling SMEs and some business segments, such as bingo, perform even better during the crisis.

Further investigations should analyze the role of single games on firm performance. The consumer- and firm-level examinations offer very different perspectives and scholars should be aware of this when investigating the gambling industry.

This study might help both policymakers and other gambling firms, such as casinos, to better understand which appropriate CG model should be adopted and how it can positively influence performance, especially in recessionary times.

This study contributes to studies on hospitality and tourism by focusing on the complementary role of gambling SMEs with respect to casinos. It also increases knowledge on the role of CG in privately owned gambling firms, which thus far has been scantly investigated by scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to examine crisis management practices among gambling-related hospitality business stakeholders (GBSs) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

An online survey was administered to a sample of GBSs resulting in 64 completed surveys. The survey explored the COVID-19 crisis using a three-phase framework: preparedness (prior experience and response plans), response (level of importance and use of crisis practices) and future (confidence in recovery, beliefs about consumer behavior and new strategies). Independent-samples t-tests were conducted to investigate the influence of preparedness variables on crisis management capabilities. Importance-Performance Analysis was used to evaluate GBSs' crisis management capabilities and identify where performance might be improved. Factor analyses were employed to explore groupings of response practices as well as future strategies.

Prior experience had a significant impact on GBSs' crisis management. IPA indicated gaps between the importance GBSs assign to response practices and their corresponding level of use, specifically for those related to marketing and government. Factor analysis revealed response practices did not group according to the questionnaire's four themes, instead, three themes of marketing, efficiency and expenses were revealed. Prevention and hygiene emerged as dominant themes with respect to future strategies.

This is a timely study that investigates crisis management among GBSs during the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides important methodological contributions as well as valuable practical considerations for gambling-related hospitality businesses.

This purpose of this paper is to explain Macau’s successful pandemic response through an analysis of its social, political and economic landscapes. In particular, it focusses on the economic relief brought by casino capitalism in this era of COVID-19.

As mobility is highly restricted during the coronavirus pandemic, digital technologies have become central to ongoing social science research. Thanks to videoconferencing programmes such as Zoom, Facetime and WhatsApp, the author was able to carry out virtual interviews with 13 local people from different sectors of Macau in July 2020. In addition to in-depth interviews, the author also undertook an extensive review of the Macau government’s pandemic policies.

This paper argues that the Macau government’s swift and effective coronavirus policies are deeply intertwined with the urban fabric and political economy of the city’s casino capitalism, which endowed the government with surplus funds and an infrastructure that enabled the implementation of an array of strict measures that few other countries could afford to subsidise. Factors that have led to Macau’s extraordinarily low rates of COVID-19 infections and deaths include: competent leadership and the public’s high compliance with mandatory health measures; the generous benefits and financial support for citizens and businesses; and the compulsory quarantine required of all incoming travellers, who are lodged in hotel rooms left empty when casino tourists stopped coming. All of these measures have been made possible by a political economy backed by the peculiarities of casino capitalism and its resultant tax revenues.

Future research could compare the case of Macau with other small but affluent economies (ideally economies that do not depend on the gambling industry) to ascertain the role of casino capitalism in building up economic resilience.

Although previous studies tend to emphasise the negative impacts of casino capitalism, this paper shows how tax revenues and infrastructure from the gambling industry can make a contribution to the host society in times of crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the evolution of Macao's gaming credit practices with reference to its promulgation of the gaming credit law after its gaming liberalization.

A qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews with casino executives, government officials and gamblers to probe their perspectives on Macao's gaming credit practices was adopted due to its underresearched nature. Documentary analysis of annual reports and court files was also used.

Despite the potential of increased revenue with more credit, the credit risk for gaming concessionaires remained under control, while VIP-rooms and junket operators have adopted more prudent policy and faced substantial challenge in credit collection. All these would lead to greater alignment with law-based credit practices.

Since gaming credit information was considered confidential, the author experienced difficulty in arranging the interviews, and the nonprobability sampling characterized by the selection bias might affect the findings.

The findings have demonstrated some major credit practices such as credit charges on credit balances and terms and conditions for repayment for different credit providers in Macao.

The different credit practices by credit providers at different levels of gaming credit have been presented in the same paper.