On the third and final day of the G2E Asia and Asian IR Expo in Macao, compliance officials and legal experts continued a lively debate on the main bottlenecks in optimising business for casino operators, with regulators pointing to the near never‑ending supply of bad actors seeking new opportunities to exploit the vulnerable.

“Even if an illegal activity is regulated, the underlying problem still exists, which is the continuous blurring between what is and what is not legal,” commented Ben Haden, president of the International Association of Gaming Regulators.

“Regulators can never eradicate the problem entirely, but they can discourage bad actors from broadening out their activities to do harm,” he said, noting that the aim was to create a regulated market attractive enough to discourage players from participating in an underground one.

But while operators recognise the regulators’ goal of protecting consumers, the rules applied often miss their mark, effectively channeling more activity into the grey zone. 

“When operators push too hard, the regulators resound with tougher measures, often creating unintended consequences that do little to solve the problems at hand,” said moderator Peter Cohen of the Agenda Group.

[See more: Panellists stress the importance of data management at Macao’s G2E and Asia IR Expo]

Although several speakers on the second day agreed that collaboration between regulators and operators produced the most effective framework, harmonising standards and sharing resources was difficult to achieve. 

Data management exemplifies this obstacle, as operators are unwilling to share what many consider their balance sheet’s most valuable assets. And as gaming moves online and becomes increasingly digitised, the insights derived from data grow even more valuable.

Among the challenges emerging is the growing popularity of prediction betting, where global trading volumes reached US$64 billion last year, an increase of over three times from just twelve months earlier. 

In Hong Kong, authorities paused plans to introduce legal basketball betting back in April due to concerns that the prolific prediction market would introduce new uncertainties and draw more into illegal prediction-market gambling. 

Experts argue that legalisation would channel gamblers into a regulated market. Economists estimate that Hong Kong foregoes about HK$6 billion in lost duty as a result of illegal prediction betting. Meanwhile, a commissioned survey taken in 2024 estimated that underground betting in Hong Kong reached between HK$70 billion and HK$90 billion.