In the opulent back rooms of casinos in the Chinese territory of Macau, Asia’s gambling kingpin, Alvin Chau, ran a business that rivalled the US’s largest casino companies and an online betting operation twice the size of China’s national lottery.
With gambling illegal in mainland China, the 32 sq km former Portuguese trading town has long been a destination for the country’s high rollers.
Pre-pandemic, the more than 40 casinos in the city generated turnover nearly six times that of Las Vegas. So important is revenue from Macau to the large US casinos that Las Vegas Sands sold out of Nevada to concentrate entirely on its Asian operations.