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“Advertising of gambling” – an expression the law does not define. By Antonio Lobo Vilela
lmost 40 years. That’s how long Macau’s advertising law sat unchanged. A fossil of a time before Google, before social media, before online casinos. Well, that’s about to change. The new Advertising Law (Law No. 7/2026 of May 11), which comes into force on January 1, 2027, replaces the 1989 statute and introduces a dramatically stricter regime for gambling advertising.
This appears a noble move: Restrict what promotes gambling, protect the vulnerable. But for the industry that defines Macau, the new provisions raise questions about the balance between social responsibility, commercial reality and the city’s unique identity.
The 1989 law prohibited gambling advertising only when gambling was the “essential target” of the message. Article 19(1) of the new law completely changes the paradigm: “It is forbidden to disseminate, by any means, advertising of gambling.” The qualification “essential target” has disappeared, making the prohibition general, with three narrow exceptions: advertising (i) by casino gaming concessionaires within the “gaming zones of their respective casinos;” (ii) by concessionaires of all other forms of permitted gambling “in the gaming establishments they operate and on their respective authorized official websites;” and (iii) during “conventions and exhibitions related to gaming machines, equipment and systems.”
Left out of this list are casino-gaming promoters – entities whose lawful, regulated activity consists of bringing clients to the gaming tables. Their activity, though legal, becomes, for communication purposes, invisible.
Fuzzy Language
Here’s where it gets fuzzy: What constitutes “advertising of gambling?” Does a commercial advertisement for playing cards, shufflers or dice published in a newspaper fall within the prohibition? The law is silent. The final version of the law replaced the expression “gambling activities” (included in the draft law’s initial version) with “gambling,” thereby broadening the scope of the prohibition. The Legislative Assembly’s report on the draft law notes the change but does not explain its rationale.
Manufacturers of gaming equipment and systems and media publishers are left in legal uncertainty, as the law refers clarification to guidelines from the Economic & Technological Development Bureau (DSEDT) – a fragile mechanism. It is possible that this vagueness is a deliberate legislative choice. By leaving key terms undefined, the legislature may have intended to grant DSEDT a wide margin of administrative discretion to adapt prohibitions to new forms of gambling communication as they emerge.
This approach has the advantage of flexibility. However, it carries a significant cost: legal uncertainty for regulated entities, whose lawful conduct may become unlawful overnight should DSEDT amend the guidelines to that effect. Regardless of whether the vagueness was intentional or accidental, the mechanism itself is problematic. Instructions do not constitute a primary source of law nor do they have external efficacy.
The experience of the 2015 guidelines, issued by the former Economic Services Bureau, should have served as a lesson. Although well-intentioned, those guidelines adopted interpretations of the 1989 law that were, at best, broad and, at worst, of dubious legality, effectively prohibiting what the law did not expressly forbid. The new law risks repeating the same mistake: entrusting the most complex questions to instructions devoid of external efficacy.
A Disturbing Oversight
More troubling is the law’s silence on responsible-gambling communications. Article 42º-A of the Gaming Law obliges casino gaming concessionaires to promote preventive-awareness actions. A campaign with the message “Gamble responsibly” is, on its face, “advertising of gambling”: It promotes an attitude towards gambling. The law creates no exception. The result will be less public information, not more. Transparency, a central element of harm prevention, will be sacrificed to a blind prohibition.
The prohibition is not limited to casino games of chance. Article 19 sweeps wider and expressly covers all other forms of permitted gambling in Macau – mutual betting, interactive gaming and operations offered to the public – that is, lotteries and sports betting. An advertisement for the Pacapio lottery or a bet on the FIFA World Cup will be equally illegal.
Nor does the law clearly define what it means by “gambling.” Skill-based games, amusement arcades and video games fall into a gray area. Are they considered “gambling” or not? The law does not answer. This ambiguity may have a chilling effect on the operators of such spaces, who do not know whether they can promote their games without risking a fine.
The casino gaming concession contracts oblige concessionaires to “carry out, in Macau and abroad, advertising and marketing campaigns of their properties.” Yet the new law removes from them the tools to do so outside the casino-gaming zones. The separation between what is gambling and what is not appears clear on paper. In practice, advertisers are left in an untenable position: They must prove that the essential message is shopping, not the gaming tables – but the law does not define how.
A Guessing Game
The impact on some Macanese media publishers may be significant. Last month, I sat with a gaming equipment manufacturer who asked me a simple question: “Can we advertise a deck of cards?” Two lawyers. Two different answers. That’s not a legal regime – that’s a guessing game. Under the new law, an advertisement for a simple deck of playing cards – a lawful product – is almost certainly caught by a broad interpretation.
These companies, already navigating a difficult digital transition, face the prospect of losing a key financial pillar. Gaming promoters and manufacturers of gaming equipment, for their part, are relegated to silence or to uncertain administrative clarification.
Macau is now adopting one of the strictest gambling advertising regimes in the world – a paradox for the global capital of casinos. Las Vegas broadly permits it, regulating by content, not by blanket prohibition. Hong Kong, even with its traditionally restrictive approach, permits advertising for lotteries, horse racing and football betting, subject to conditions. For example, not in children’s programs, not between 4:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., and without exaggerating the likelihood of winning. Singapore allows targeted promotions to tourists outside casinos under a prior-authorization system. It expressly excludes from the prohibition communications intended to discourage the use of gambling services.
Macau permits none of this. The message is clear: Gambling exists but its promotion must be invisible – a trajectory that contrasts sharply with Macau’s aspiration to be a “World Center of Tourism and Leisure.” The law deepens Macau’s economic paradox: a region that depends on gambling for its revenue but legislates as if gambling did not exist for the public.
Imprecise Overkill
Good policy requires precision. The gambling advertising provisions of the new law are a classic case of using a cannon to kill a fly – solving by brute force what demanded a more careful hand. What the law should have done was to create at least a fourth exception to the general prohibition: institutional responsible-gambling advertising and informative advertising about the lawful existence of gambling, provided that there is no appeal to consumption, no images of players or gaming moments, and with a mandatory warning.
In particular: (i) awareness campaigns promoted by concessionaires or by the Macau SAR government, with messages such as “Gamble responsibly,” should be expressly excluded from the prohibition, subject to prior notification to DSEDT; and (ii) manufacturers of gaming equipment and systems should be allowed to advertise their products in specialized trade publications, provided the advertisement does not refer to specific casinos. The law should provide for the definition of what constitutes “advertising of gambling” to be referred to an administrative regulation – which has external efficacy.
Without safeguards like these, the law doesn’t protect people more – it protects them worse. How? By hiding prevention, stifling lawful commerce and contradicting the casino-gaming-concession contracts. A good law is not measured by the harshness of its prohibitions. On the contrary, what is paramount is its intelligence in distinguishing what is harmful from what is merely inconvenient.
Macau has spent years building a responsible gambling framework with dedicated government campaigns, industry certifications and legal obligations for casino-gaming concessionaires. It would be ironic to see all that thrown away not by what the law says but by what it carelessly omits. The balancing act is delicate, but the final text of the law is not a balance – it is a poorly secured tightrope.
This exclusive article was originally published in the June 2026 edition of Casino Life Magazine Issue 189 Volume 22***
