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From Casino Wars To Casino Capitalism: Sovereignty And Gaming In Macau, Tim Simpson

Occasional Papers

In 1999, after nearly half a millennia of administration, Portugal returned the citystate of Macau to the People’s Republic of China, and it was designated a Special Administrative Region under the PRC’s “one country, two systems” regime. Less than a decade after the handover Macau was transformed into the world’s most lucrative site of casino gaming, and today the city is visited by more than 35 million annual tourists, the majority of whom are from mainland China. Macau’s remarkable economic expansion may be in part attributed to the city’s ambiguous sovereignty, an endemic characteristic which dates to the city’s founding …