Part V: Regional & Cultural · Asia-Pacific Regional Terms

1.24 Side-betting (Under-the-Table Betting)

Macau — Illegal Gaming

Side-betting, also known as under-the-table betting, is the practice of placing wagers on casino games outside the official casino system, bypassing the house and government tax collection. In Macau’s VIP rooms, side-betting involved junket operators accepting private wagers that were not recorded in the casino’s official win/loss calculations. The Alvin Chau (Suncity) and Levo Chan (Tak Chun) prosecutions revealed that side-betting operations had defrauded Macau casinos of over HK$850 billion in undeclared wagers, depriving the government of billions in tax revenue.

In practice

Side-betting was the primary charge in the landmark junket prosecutions. The practice allowed junkets to create parallel gambling economies within official casino VIP rooms, effectively operating their own casino-within-a-casino.

One entry from the Casino Industry Glossary — 1,157 terms written for surveillance, compliance and operations professionals rather than for players. Definitions describe industry usage; where a term carries a regulatory meaning, verify against the instrument that governs your jurisdiction.