Almost everything a visitor to Cotai walks through was built by one of six companies. Understanding the corporate layer explains the physical one.
Who are the six, and for how long?
Six concessionaires, on ten-year terms that all began and end together. The gaming regulator lists them, and each contract carries the same clause: the concession runs from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2032.
| Concessionaire | Casinos, end Q2 2026 | Committed investment |
|---|---|---|
| Venetian Macau, S.A. | 5 | MOP 30,239 million |
| Galaxy Casino, S.A. | 3 | MOP 28,350 million |
| Wynn Resorts (Macau), S.A. | 2 | MOP 17,730 million |
| MGM Grand Paradise, S.A. | 2 | MOP 16,700 million |
| SJM Resorts, S.A. | 5 | MOP 14,033 million |
| Melco Resorts (Macau) S.A. | 3 | MOP 11,823.7 million |
Each must hold minimum share capital of MOP 5 billion, maintain net assets at that floor throughout, and post an autonomous bank guarantee of MOP 1 billion running until 180 days after the contract ends.
How many people does this employ?
52,772 full-time staff in the gaming sector at the end of the second quarter of 2026, and the occupational breakdown is the part worth reading.
| Occupation | Employees |
|---|---|
| Total | 52,772 |
| Dealers | 23,489 |
| Other clerks — cage cashiers, count clerks, floorpersons | 13,999 |
| Pit and floor supervisors and inspectors | 8,099 |
| Pit, floor and slot managers | 3,301 |
| Administrators and managers | 3,611 |
| Service and sales workers | 3,327 |
| Mechanics, machine operators and drivers | 1,111 |
Two patterns stand out. Dealing is overwhelmingly women's work — 15,842 of the 23,489 dealers are female. And the sector is not hiring: vacancies stood at 217, a job vacancy rate of 0.4 per cent.
Set against a total employed population of 376,400 in the same quarter, the gaming industry's 66,100 workers are about 17.6 per cent of everyone employed in Macau, with the narrower establishment count of 52,772 at about 14.0 per cent.
What are they contractually obliged to build?
Eleven categories of project, most of them not gaming. Each of the six contracts carries the same list.
- International visitor source markets
- Conventions and exhibitions
- Entertainment shows
- Sports events
- Culture and art
- Health and wellness
- Themed amusement
- City of gastronomy
- Community tourism
- Maritime tourism
- Others
The enforcement machinery is specific. Each concessionaire must submit a concrete project-execution proposal for the following year by 30 September, with the government deciding within 60 days; must report the previous year's execution and amounts invested by 31 March; and must file progress reports on works every two months. If total actual spending falls short of the committed amount, the shortfall must be spent on further projects the government accepts or designates.
What does a visitor actually use?
Hotel rooms and conference floors, mostly. At the end of July 2026 Macau had 149 operating accommodation establishments with 45,300 guest rooms, of which 104 were hotels and 40 of those five-star, holding 26,200 rooms — about 58 per cent of all guest rooms in the territory.
The MICE figures show the other half of the non-gaming build-out in use. In 2025 Macau hosted 1,860 events with 1,471,247 participants across 1,385,045 square metres of floor area; the second quarter of 2026 alone recorded 499 events and 371,894 square metres.
| Indicator | Figure |
|---|---|
| Hotel rooms, July 2026 | 45,300 |
| Five-star rooms | 26,200 |
| Five-star establishments | 40 |
| MICE events, 2025 | 1,860 |
| MICE floor area used, 2025 | 1,385,045 m² |
| MICE participants, 2025 | 1,471,247 |
The gaming sector's own accounts show the scale of the hospitality it gives away. Complimentary goods and services provided to customers reached MOP 27,368 million in 2025, of which MOP 14,180 million was hotel accommodation, MOP 8,879 million food and beverages, and MOP 1,520 million bus, ferry and air tickets.
Can you rely on the shuttle buses?
You can find them officially, which is more than most visitors realise. The government runs a free-shuttle-bus information platform through the Economic and Technological Development Bureau, linked directly from the gaming regulator's own homepage, with nearest-shuttle search, service periods, stops and full timetables.
What no official source states is how many shuttles or routes there are, whether routes must be registered, or whether every service is open to people who are not hotel guests. The platform's route data sits behind an application key rather than on a public page.
Why does the government care so much?
Because gaming paid 76.4 per cent of public revenue in 2025 — MOP 94,855 million of MOP 124,120 million. The tax structure is a 35 per cent special gaming tax on gross gaming revenue under Law No. 16/2001, plus contributions of 2 per cent and 3 per cent, and an annual premium of MOP 30 million fixed plus MOP 300,000 per reserved gaming table, MOP 150,000 per other table and MOP 1,000 per gaming machine.
Statutory ceilings cap the floor itself: 6,000 gaming tables and 12,000 gaming machines across all concessionaires, effective from 1 January 2023. Both caps are currently at their limit.
What this guide does not cover
The gaming and non-gaming split of the MOP 118.9 billion is absent. Each contract states a single combined budget covering both, so no non-gaming portion is stated here — a figure widely quoted elsewhere that the contracts themselves do not contain.
Nor does this guide state that dealer posts are legally reserved for Macau residents. That rule is widely reported, but it does not appear in Law No. 16/2001 as republished, Law No. 7/2022, Law No. 16/2022, the implementing regulation, the six contracts or the labour bureau's non-resident pages. The statistics service records no non-resident dealers, which is consistent with the rule but is not the rule.
Also missing: the share of hotel rooms inside integrated resorts, since the statistics service classifies accommodation by star rating rather than operator; any monetary figure for the concessionaires' contribution to public-use facilities, since the annual execution reports are not published; and total casino floor area, which the regulator does not publish at all.