If you think of gambling, Las Vegas is probably the first thing that pops up in your mind. ‘The Strip’ boasts more casino resorts per square mile than any place in the world. Thousands of slot machines, blackjack and roulette tables, and poker rooms can be found at over 100 hotel & casino resorts in ‘Sin City’, as Las Vegas is often referred to as.
What many didn’t know was that for years, Macau, an autonomous region in South China, and former Portuguese colony, was building it’s very own Las Vegas. In fact, Macau’s gambling industry is actually seven times larger than that of Las Vegas. For years, though, Macau still wasn’t on the radar of most people from overseas. That changed when the region received an unexpected push of popularity from the movie Skyfall.
Free advertising from James Bond himself
When Sam Mendes released Skyfall back in 2012, no one expected it to become the success it did. Its predecessor, Casino Royale (2006) was already a hit, but Skyfall crushed all expectations. With over $1 billion in box office earnings, the James Bond movie with Daniel Craig is still ranking in the Top 30 highest-grossing films of all time.
Now, how exactly did Skyfall raise awareness for Macau? The movie happened to feature scenes of the Golden Dragon Casino in Macau, a 100,000 square foot hotel & casino resort with hundreds of slot machines and table games. In the week after the movie release date, searches for Macau more skyrocketed to an all-time high and put the autonomous region onto everyone’s radar.
There is one fun fact worth mentioning at this point; although Skyfall drove loads of publicity for Macau, the directors and actors actually never travelled down there. All scenes were filmed at the Pinewood Studios in the UK and subsequently branded with the Golden Dragon logo and interiors.
A wake-up call for Macau and China
Just like any other country, the outbreak of the coronavirus has also and especially led to travel restrictions within China. Unfortunately, it means that even if you got a taste of it, you wouldn’t be able to go down to Macau anytime soon.
Unfortunately, there are also no options to play any games online, as online gambling is still illegal and unregulated in China. Tim Smith, an analyst at Casinostoplay.com, hopes that the situation served as a wake-up call. In his expert opinion, China is past due to legalising online casinos considering Internet betting is up almost 90%, and most of the business is picked up by overseas gambling companies.
Whether this is going to happen remains questionable, considering most European went the complete other direction and further tightened the rules around online gambling during the current pandemic rather than opening up new opportunities. Countries like Spain, Italy or Denmark heavily restricted advertisements for casinos and betting sites. Sweden went one step further and introduced extreme deposit and bonus limits that led to some gambling companies threatening even to exit the market altogether.
