Macau Sports Betting: What Sports To Bet On?

Introduction: What Sports to Bet on in Macau?

As you’re probably already aware, Macau is by far the largest gambling hub in the world. In Las Vegas, you might think that you’ve seen the world’s biggest casinos, but nothing can prepare you for the sheer scale of gambling businesses you’ll find sitting off the Chinese coast. Macau is certainly worth a visit for all it’s attractions as well as if you’re into all forms of gambling and betting and jackpot games. Most gamblers make the mistake of associating the province with just casino table games and slots. But since 1998, Macau has been ale to promote regular sports. Let’s have a look at the activities a sports bettor could get involved with if he were to visit Macau.

For the sake of comparison, think back to the last time you visited a sportsbook in Las Vegas. In Sin City, sportsbooks are mainly run out from casinos. Hence you’ll find walls of huge flat-screen TVs showing all the ongoing fixtures. Apart from these high definition TV’s, there’ll be comfortable seating along with drinks and snacks. It’s easy to see that it’s the sportsbooks that are literally driving the casino business in many cases.

At the 22BET Sportsbook, you can literally bet on all the existing sports

Macau Betting Shops

If you attend a US casino-based sportsbook in Las Vegas during an important game or match, you’ll find it filled with sports betting fans decked out in their team’s colors. The whole atmosphere is that of a huge party. Everyone has the time of their lives, with drinking, shouting, and spending. They make even losing your bets a fun experience! But Macau is the polar opposite of this.

For a start, there are no sportsbooks operating out of casinos. That’s right, not one casino will offer a sportsbook for sports betting. Casinos are just for casino table games and jackpot slots. That’s it! If you want some sports betting action, then you’ll have to find a dedicated betting shop. These shops are a monopoly as all under the same business name, Macau Slots, which in turn is owned by the late Stanley Ho. In Macau, he still referred to as the “King of Gambling”. Back in the day, he started the sports betting industry there. Today his family continues to cap the market. It’s this monopoly that has acted as a barrier against other entities having any possibility of entering the market place. Because Macau Slots has 99% of any sports betting business, there’s very little point in trying to set odds against them.

Online Sports Books In Macau

Typical with the laws in China, nothing is straightforwards. So, in Macau, online sportsbooks do a massive amount of trade. But, it’s also illegal for the citizens there to gamble online! So, though technically, all those sportsbooks are actually breaking the law there, they use clever and specific wording and jargon to place the onus of the betting transactions onto the punter as opposed to themselves. With these verbal tricks, sports betting companies continue to offer their services, and all specially tailored to the Macau market place. For example, these web sites are all written in Chinese, which is Macau’s primary language. They also offer things like customer support in the same language.

So online gambling is super easy for the local population to partake in, in spite of the fact that it’s meant to be illegal. The fact that there are no casino-based sportsbooks, has driven all the sports betting traffic towards the web, and so internet betting sites flourish and make huge bank.

Underground Betting Markets

If you consider that the online sports betting market are the size of say, Craig’s List, then the illegal betting market is the size of eBay or Amazon. Under the table, sports betting accounts for billions of unseen dollars every year. In 2014, a high profile poker player, Paul Phua was arrested in Macau. He’d been running an illegal gambling operation out of a suite in the Wynn Macau Casino. Though no charges have ever been bought, the arrest did shine a light into what is essential, Macau’s biggest business, illegal gambling. In some ways, the illegal gambling scene in Macau is comparable to that which goes on in the US. There, law enforcement just doesn’t appear to have the motivation to throw the book at individual sports bettors, preferring instead to focus resources on the larger players and businesses.

Now that sports betting is being introduced across more and more US states, it’ll be interesting to see they’re effect on the underground betting industry. There will more than probably be a huge dip in illegal sportsbook earnings. Not just because betting will be legal. But more for the sheer convenience of being able to bet at a local store or sports book shop. In the same manner that when Prohibition ended, Americans swamped the bars and all those underground illegal drinking dens came to a grinding halt.

Legal vs Illegal Betting

The real question is, if Macau has so many legal sports betting options, then why is underground and illegal sports betting such a huge industry? Why do punters still give business to unlicensed bookies? Once again, it all comes down to convenience. On the whole, your average Chinese sports bettor is looking for a means of placing his bets as quickly and as fairly as possible. Illegal bookies provide such a service. Of course, it goes without saying that a convicted illegal bookie can look forwards to a decade in prison. The punter will see at least half that time inside. Yet in spite of these heavy sentence possibilities, underground betting shows no signs of slowing down.

So, what are the main sports that the bettors in Macau sink their cash into? Let’s have a look.

Playing the Ponies

The Macau Jockey Club was formed in 1989, and horse racing has been a betting stable ever since. Races such as the Macau Derby, the Macau Gold Cup, and the Chairman’s Challenge Cup bring punters flocking to Macau from all over China. The weekends of these important races are really a madhouse of betting and racing. The Macau Jockey club, where all the bets are made, has over 200 betting windows. And if you can’t make it to the track, then have no fear that you’ll miss out on the betting action. There are a further 80 off-track betting windows situated around the city of Macau itself.

For the last three decades, sports betting on horses has been probably the most popular betting sport on the island. It horse racing is your thing, then going to a major race at the Macau Jockey Club will certainly be an unforgettable experience. If you go on a regular basis then you’ll quickly pick up some jackpot winning tips and tricks.

Greyhound Racing

In the west, whether in the US or the UK, greyhound racing is gradually being fazed out. Concerns of animal welfare, along with an increasing awareness of animal rights, has led to a sharp decline over the last decade or so. But the Chinese have no such problems with the racing of dogs. After all, it could be argued that when they’re not racing them, they’re eating them! In Macau, the racing of greyhounds is becoming more and more popular as time passes. The main race track is known as the “Caindrome”. There’s a small admission charge which also comes with a small free bet. Interestingly enough, though virtually all casinos will keep sports betting away from their doors, there are an increasing number of casinos who now host sports betting for the dogs.

If you make a visit to the Caindrome, then you witness up to 20 races each day. The dogs are mainly imported from Australia. You can study the form of the dogs to increase your jackpot winning chances. All the sportsbooks also offer a telephone service, whereby you can phone in your bets before a race. Not only can gamblers call in their bets, but they can also cash out directly to their bank accounts. Both horse racing and greyhound racing show no signs of declining. In fact, it appears that both these sports are showing annual increases in bets taken.

Betting on Basketball

This is another extremely popular betting sport in China. Macau does enjoy a professional basketball league, though we should point out that it’s pretty crap. A point of interest is that many of the players are gamblers themselves. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in how hard the players or teams might try to win games, as opposed to winning bets on themselves. To that end, a lot of the basketball sports betting activity is directed to matches abroad. And in particular towards the US NBA. In fact, sports betting on the NBA makes up a significant proportion of all sports betting income on the island. For the bettors of Macau, you can watch all the games live provided by the sportsbooks, via satellite and internet TV. With so many of the population of China enamored with US basketball, then it makes for an extremely fertile betting business.

Soccer (Football) Betting

Here we have the world’s most popular sport. In all of China, football is king, eclipsing all other sports along the way. So for sports bettors in Macau, you’ll need to go to the sports betting shops of Macau Slot in order to place a bet. Even though it’s thousands of kilometers from the UK, you’d be surprised as to the huge percentage of wagers being placed every week on UK football teams. Though there’s some betting action on the matches of the Spanish La Liga, Italian Series A, and the German Bundesliga, the UK soccer scene is certainly way ahead in attracting the Chinese betting public.

Without a doubt, the English Premier League is number one. Teams such as Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal all have a massive and dedicated following throughout the Chinese mainland. Whenever there’s an important UK league match, then the Chinese fans will flood the sports book shops chanting and singing as they enjoy the matches. It’s fair to say that football generates the lion’s share of income from across all sports betting in Macau.

Conclusion: What Sports to Bet on in Macau?

On a global scale, Macau is the biggest gambling hub in the world. And that’s just not for casino games either. There’s a huge market for sports betting, even though many of the bets are technically illegal. That’s because there’s a monopoly in place. So there’s really only one place that can accept all sports bets, Macau Slot. Having said that, the massive underground betting industry probably eclipses the legal one. More and more punters move toward the internet and away from the more traditional betting shops.

Click here to visit the 22BET Sportsbook to find the broadest variety of bets on the web