Local junket operator Cali Group has shut down another VIP room located in MGM Macau, Business Daily has learned. According to the president of gaming labour union Forefront of Macau Gaming (FMG) Ieong Man Teng, he was informed by a Cali worker last week that the VIP promoter had issued notice of terminating employment to most of its workers at the room, in addition to having disbursed severance pay. Asked by Business Daily yesterday when the VIP room officially stopped operations and how many workers were involved, the FMG head claimed he did not have the related information on hand. But an MGM spokesperson told us yesterday that no VIP room of Cali Group is currently located in the MGM property, adding that the junket operator’s operation in MGM has ceased “for a while.” Cali Group once had four VIP rooms in the city. At the end of January this year, the company closed two in Grand Lisboa on the Peninsula and in City of Dreams on the Cotai Strip. As at yesterday, the junket’s official website still states that it has two VIP rooms located in MGM Macau and Galaxy Macau, respectively. Business Daily also contacted the junket operator for clarification but received no reply from the company before this story went to press. Meanwhile, the contact number of Cali’s MGM VIP room, as stated on its official website, was still reachable yesterday. An employee answering our call claimed she was not clear about the issue and declined to comment further. Large-scale operations benefiting Despite the closure of local VIP rooms, the labour union leader sees the closure of small-scale VIP rooms as benefiting the large-scale operations. “Of course, [the trend] would affect most of the local workers in the VIP sector. But so far we don’t see much impact on workers working in the mass market. The closures of small-scale VIP rooms would help large-scale ones to stabilise,” Mr. Ieong said in a phone interview. Meanwhile, He claimed junket operators requesting local workers to work overseas is becoming more frequent as they shift their businesses outside the Special Administrative Region in response to the gaming slump. “But this is not really fair for gaming workers. They don’t have much freedom to choose the options [offered by the company]. Either go work overseas or quit,” the union leader said.
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