i remember reading somewhere when i was young that it takes as much as 15 seconds for your head to die once severed no clue how true that may be tho lol
I lived in Macau with my parents. Back then, we didn't pay taxes because of the casino's profits. Since my father worked at the Macau electric company, we also didn't pay electricity. Good times.
Speaking as a former resident and student there: Their CE, Mr. Ho constantly iterates that diversification is important but there's barely anything done. They're still as a rock. It was especially evident when covid was over nothing changed. The money is flowing back in to casinos. Even with the thriving casinos, the local residents aren't benefiting. Theres many people who study to leave the city, so brain drain is a significant problem. Their infrastructure is focused on the casinos, where there's barely any investment for the Macanese people themselves. Since money laundering is such a problem and regulations are so tight there, E-commerce is nearly impossible. Many shops are still closing and reopening there. The job figures is misleading too, as a lot of jobs posted are potentially scams. A lot only want your personal data and/or money.
"What we're doing is unsustainable and can not work forever, but I am baffled that it still works and terrified of changing anything that might break it."
@@Rubicola174 Where is that quote from? It's so relatable and explainable! It applies to both Macau and a lot of draconian business practices. In one case study, a hotel company restricted their corporate network speed to 200kbs as they feared that employees would waste time on social media on the computers. Email attachments, ppt, and pdfs had to be sent on the hotel guest wifi network. It was anonymized with the name "Ravine"
the issue is that the mafia ( the casino owners) are part of the Gov, just like in another 3 world country, (trust me i live in one) they will talk about the issues, but there is no real way to deal with them after all you need to cut off a huge portion of the gdp, by cutting off ties with this people and thats not possible since this people have a lot of power so the gov act like a puppet unless there is a bigger country interested in dealing with the shit show, but for them there is a lot to loose and little to earn so they end up partnering with the mafia
Remembers years ago reading a statistic that gambling in Macau is five times more important to their economy than that of Las Vegas and thinks: “Alright, I’ll give it a shot.”
Hum. There's a James Clavell novel The Noble House detailing one eventful week in Hong Kong in 1963. One of the character is Lando Mata, the Portugese-Chinese owner of the gambling monopoly which is partially based on Stanley Ho.
I have been working my way very slowly through your very first videos over the last few months, and just made it up to the Macau history ones when this popped up. Coincidence or what? You have an excellent body of work here. It's great to see how your presentation has improved over time, the older stuff was patchy but the content is still 100% worthwhile. Thanks for doing you.
Yup, I remember the "good ole' days" of VIP rooms. Some suites were quite luxurious. Even had separate food and booze (and concierges that would get you anything else you wanted, and I mean anything) menus. Quiet, clean didn't smell like, old beer, booze, angst and cigarette smoke like the regular Casinos.
I visited Macau during the last week of Portuguese rule. One thing that struck me about the city was how few people knew any Portuguese, despite the fact that all the signs were in Portuguese and the old city was a textbook example of Portuguese architecture. I understand that this was largely because most of the city's residents arrived from China in the 20th century, but it did confirm my suspicion that the Portuguese, for better or for worse, made very little effort to assimilate the people they ruled over. This video sheds a new light on that - they were not really in charge at all, they just did whatever the gangs told them to do.
it's interesting how a gambling industry seems to almost guarantee the ensconcement of an oligarchy whose primary interest consists only of making things easier for their casinos. perhaps monaco is an exception. by virtue of being too small to house the poor.
You gotta do what the US learned to do tie the casinos profits into social goods like the casino I worked at all their income went to the government to build stuff like roads hospitals and an auditorium for the high school then the government pays them back minus taxes
@@nothanks9503 that certainly helps. the problem is that it's very difficult to calculate the harm done by gambling, whereas it's relatively easy to quantify the benefits. As the benefits are largely financial and the harms are generally not. like take someone who loses his house at the casino. thats an economic postive to the economy as a whole and yes you can offset the benefit received by the casino by taxation and then use those public goods like some sort of welfare housing for the man's family, but i dont see how this transaction will ever realistically be made into a net benefit. an extreme example i know, but that i have witnessed before nonetheless. but yes harm reduction and harm offset clearly helps versus funnelling the money into criminal organizations
I like how everyone is getting eaten over time. Like the amount of video titles asianometry has stating whomever was ate you would think by just titles that they were dabbling in true crime.
I live in the Western United States, so naturally I don't ever hear about anything that happens in Asia. Your channel is really interesting! Sometimes we get so caught up in our own lives that we forget there's an entire world going on at any moment! It's amazing!
I was a professor of Portuguese in Macau between 1989/1997 and never seen the crime-riddled Territory as you say in the beggining of this "peace". With or without Stanley Ho influence. And Gambling in Macau under the Portuguese Rule was always legal, afterall Macau was under Portuguese Law until 1999. PS: what Stanley Ho achived,legally or illegally is just Astonishing. Macau is just 6 times bigger than Las Vegas in Gambling Revenue. Not bad at all for a small old colonial Territory .
I was in Macau in 2018. I said to my friend that Macau makes Las Vegas into a place where you go slumming. I've never seen such hotels and casinos as those in Macau.
How convenient, I’m currently reading the book “Blood Brothers” by Bertil Lintner more specifically the chaper on Macau, and he pretty much recounts the same thing in that book.
as someone born in macau in the 2000s (and left since) this video resonated especially on the economy currently - it is a lack of diversity ever since covid it felt like a drastic change in the quality and way of life (and this is not accounting to the totaliterian-esque restrictions) as most casinos cannot capitalise on the vip guests. likewise, with or without diversification macau (to an extent hk) are both doomed to mainland as they export much cheaper labour and greater competition to the locals who would often lose out and the money spent onto macau's non-existent tourism (or what remains of it after little red book ruined everything) drives prices up. I currently live in the uk and sometimes i feel the prices here are the same back "home", even if every brit moans about cost of living but i digress. i do not mean to be xenophobic to the mainlanders (as that would be illegal under the national security law) but i do feel like both macau and hk have lost its soul, from when i was a child - a place which used to be a haven of sorts, removed to nothing but bureaucracy and oligarchs willing to sell out to the mainland government as the common people suffer under prices (and housing) with lowered income. rant over
Gambling is much more culturally big in China than the US (or at least until recently, who knows with all the sports betting). Vegas has sought over the past couple decade to get as many Chinese and other East Asian high rollers into Vegas because they spend so much. And part of the reason AC has struggled so much is that they can't really access the Chinese high roller market The widespread legalization of gambling in the US also differs massively from China, where it remains illegal on the mainland. While in the US most cities have multiple casinos nearby, the only place you can gamble in China is Macau and HK (and other SE Asian countries). For example, I live in Philadelphia - 20 years ago the only place near me I could gamble at would be AC, but today I can walk to a casino
Love Macau, always go there, next time I'm gonna eat at Taipa village for a change, last time I was there, got food poisoning from raw beef tartare, stayed at old man Stanley's Versace hotel at Lisboa Palace, nice place! I do notice that Macau's number of gamblers have slowly declined over the years, but the walk-in and leisure tourists have exponentially increased especially among the youth, they don't gamble but they do social media posting, most eat and shop at low to medium end establishments but not really on the high end luxury shops and dinning, that is mostly reserved for the rich Chinese tourists from Southeast Asia.
ironic that the thumbnail says "how the rich are macau" but the titile is "how the gamblers ate macau" since gamblers usually are the opposite of rich. maybe saying how the casinos ate macau would be better
I knew exactly what the video was going to be about the moment i saw it in my feed. Unless somoene else didn't, or particularly nearly skipped the video due to thumbnail/title, i don't feel a clarification or improvement is necessary.
I'd never heard of the 12-3 Incident but the Wiki article has enlightened me. I never realised the PRC government was basically in charge from 1966 but let the Portuguese pretend to rule Macau until 1999. Wiki suggests that this was because Beijing didn't want to make people in Hong Kong worry.
You're kind of misunderstanding it based on this individual perception. Prc was newly formed. China does not equate to prc. Prc has more parts that is now generalised and classified as china. But some of these people who support the communists don't know that. But why the fights happen here in Macau and in HK is because these people are indeed the last or few remaining Chinese. That is why they fight for their rights. It's like Catalonia... In Spain.. or the Vatican... In Rome... But hearing in mind that nobody said that the two cannot coexists. It can. It has. They won't fight if they aren't some kind of imperial elite. Think about it. Even in Vietnam, there was a dynasty too... Mr Lai... Now it is part of that. So... What is happening with art. 23 is not good. It makes the whole UN notion a mediocrity. Cos you are killing off the remaining empire of another state. Imagine if somebody targetted the royal families.... Even everybody knows that Madonna is part of the royal family tree to the old Queen.... Similar to Mr Lai.
I agree. Macau is laid back and relaxing compared to HK. Their Hac Sa beach is always worth visiting and relaxing in. They have a surprising amount of Michelin star restaurants. However, their whole economy is dependent on gambling, and they didn't diversify even after covid, which hit them incredibly hard.
The 12-3 incident, coupled with Carnation Revolution, did paralysed Portugese ability to continuing rule Macau. But I will also add, Portugal did want to surrender Macau back to China as early as possible. But the politburo rather have HK first as the latter has more things to deal with. Hence why Macau only back to China 450 years later. It starts and end with Macau...
680k population is basically useless figure, so do the apparent density because there’re MORE tourists than the citizens in Macau everyday. And thanks to the distance to mainland is literally nothing, more than half of them go back at night. Moreover, there’re ~100k “foreign” worker(mainly from china) working in Macau. Also need to mention only ~50% of land in Macau is civilised/developed, but local people love to stay in the Macau Pennisula(half again). So all in all there’re usually ~100k person/km2(in town area) in day time and
@@MeiinUK Well, what a good description! It's very similar to the way people love Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong, high density and clean. But compare to them, Macanese is more merciful(unlike Tokyo it's on the face and unlike Hong Kong they discriminate each other) and simple or even naive, the city landscape is a bit dilapidated, closer to Kuala Lumpur.
my uncle was running one of the casinos in macau after the handover. the chinese continually cracked down on the gambling and he always complained about them
I remember going to Macau regularly as a kid in the 80s and was suprised by the rampant poverty and beggars on every street. It was always seedy, but had portugese charm. Now it's lost it's unique culture and has become a vile souless Chinese version of Las Vegas.
Little Portugal expelled Chinese natives from Macau and unilaterally declared it a Portguese colony. Boy China was taken advantage of during that time.
fan tan: not "divided by four" but the remainder, modulo four... The Wikipedia on the matter also got modulo wrong, stating that players bet on 1..4--that is not the case, it's 0..3. People really should get their maths vocabulary up to passing levels...
Vicente Nicolau de Mesquita was the Macanese officer who lead the attack on Chinese winning against great odds. He went crazy because he did not receive the accolades he expected and killed his wife before throwing himself down a well. I lived on the street in Taipa named for him.
Thanks for “non-tech” history videos like this too! Asian history is practically nonexistent in european schools… (and this kind of spicy history is also “forbidden”)
This is not true. Actually. But this kind of history are news in the eyes of the West. Each country teaches their own history of the country. To teach these relationships.. you need to learn it as a separate subject as history.
