Getting help.
If gambling has stopped being a choice, there are formal routes in Macau — and they do not depend on a casino agreeing to anything.
If you need help now
The Social Welfare Bureau (Instituto de Acção Social, IAS) provides problem-gambling counselling in Macau, including through its Resilience Centre. Support is available to residents and, in practice, to visitors — you do not need a casino's permission or involvement to seek it, and you do not need to be excluded first.
1 ·The routes available
There are two distinct things a person can do, and they are often confused. One is getting support. The other is being barred from entering. They can be done together or separately.
Counselling and support runs through the IAS and the treatment and counselling services it funds. It is confidential, it is not conditional on excluding yourself, and it does not require a casino to be involved at any point.
Statutory exclusion is a decision of the DICJ Director under Article 6 of Law 10/2012. It can cover all Macau casinos or only some, for up to two years. A person can apply themselves; a spouse, ascendant, descendant or second-degree collateral relative can present an application, but the person concerned must confirm it for the interdiction to be made.
Applications are lodged through the DICJ, and information is available at the Responsible Gambling Information Kiosks (government service reference PS-1408). That kiosk route comes from a government service page rather than the gazette, so we mark it as a lower evidence grade than the statutory provisions above it.
One thing worth knowing before you apply
Revocation is not immediate. Under Article 6(2) a person may ask for the interdiction to be lifted at any time, but it takes effect only 30 days after the request. That delay is deliberate — it is what stops a decision made in one moment being undone in the next.
2 ·Consent, and what it protects
Where there are grounded indications that a person is affected by gambling addiction disorder, the DICJ may send their personal data to the IAS and request its intervention — but only with that person's consent (Article 16-B). Consent is a condition of the referral, not paperwork completed afterwards.
Separately, exclusion records are personal data under Law 8/2005. Article 16-C is what allows the DICJ to share and interconnect interdiction data with other public entities and with the concessionaires — which is how an exclusion reaches a property's systems at all, and why those records carry data-protection duties rather than sitting outside them.
3 ·If you work at a property
A patron asking to stop is a duty-of-care moment, and the sequence matters. Handle it privately. Apply the property's own exclusion immediately, because that is within the operator's gift. Then facilitate the statutory application rather than describing it as something the property can grant — it cannot. Offer the IAS referral, and record consent before any personal data moves.
Our Self-Exclusion & Limit-Setting SOP sets out that sequence in full, with the forms and the register. It is free in the Responsible Gaming pack.
4 ·Sources
- 1.Exclusion on request — who may apply and the confirmation requirement — Law 10/2012 Art. 6(1), BO 52/2018, 27 Dec 2018
- 2.Revocation takes effect 30 days after the request — Law 10/2012 Art. 6(2), BO 52/2018
- 3.IAS intervention requires the person’s consent — Law 10/2012 Art. 16-B, BO 52/2018
- 4.Processing and interconnection of exclusion data — Law 10/2012 Art. 16-C, applying Law 8/2005, BO 52/2018
- 5.IAS counselling services and the Responsible Gambling Information Kiosks — Macau government service information (PS-1408) — service-page sourced, not gazetteMarked at a lower evidence grade than the statutory provisions above
Support-service descriptions are ANALYSIS: they summarise publicly described programmes rather than citing an instrument. The statutory provisions are VERIFIED against the Boletim Oficial.