Do Macau Casinos Charge Resort Fees?

Most gambling destinations throughout the world charge resort fees. The latter refers to extra charges that casino and hotels add to a bill for your stay.

Las Vegas is notorious for charging large resort fees. Atlantic City, Reno, Tunica, and other notable casino destinations have followed suit.

Those who visit most gambling hotspots are used to covering these extra charges. But what about the Chinese casino haven Macau?

I’m going to discuss more on resort fees in general along with if Macau also levels these charges at customers.

How Do Resort Fees Work?

The price that you book a casino hotel room for isn’t usually the price you pay. Instead, casinos add a resort fee on after the fact.

You may feel that this charge is just another way to gouge you. However, gambling establishments feel like they’re merely billing you for the extra services they provide.

Common amenities at casino resorts include an airport shuttle bus, business meeting rooms/centers, fitness center access, swimming pool access, toiletries, and Wi-Fi.

Casinos argue that they could charge you for each individual service. Instead, they bundle these amenities into a single fee.

The key issue, though, is that you don’t see the resort fee until checking out. This aspect can make you surprised and even angry about having to pay more than the booking cost.

Why Do People Hate Resort Fees?

Most people wouldn’t bat an eye at paying an extra $5 charge following their stay. This additional amount may be inconvenient, but it’s less than the cost of a fast food meal.

Unfortunately, the average gambling resorts requires a much-larger fee than $5. This is especially the case on the Las Vegas Strip.

Certain casinos, such as the Venetian and Wynn, charge up to $45 in resort fees alone. Assuming you’ve booked a room at $200, you’re paying an additional 25% on top of the upfront costs.

Gambling venues don’t have a valid reason for adding these charges afterward. They include for the resort fee during checkout because they want to make their room rates look cheaper.

If you see that a room costs $150 instead of $200, you’re more likely to stay at that resort. You only find out that you’re paying $200 when checking out.

Perhaps you wouldn’t be so annoyed at this charge if you could negotiate the rate. However, every casino that requires these fees expects you to pay the full amount.

Resort Fees Are Quite Common in American Gambling Destinations

As mentioned before, the United States gaming industry has fully embraced these additional charges. You won’t find a notable American casino spot without at least a few establishments that require resort fees.

Las Vegas takes the cake for charging the highest resort fees. Everywhere from the Strip to downtown uses this marketing gimmick to encourage more bookings.

Some Sin City casinos are still going the old-school route by not forcing you to pay resort fees. But these are also the less-heralded establishments located downtown or on the Boulder Strip.

As far as I’m aware, every casino in Atlantic City and Reno features resort charges. Their fees are cheaper than those in Vegas, but they still range from $10 to $25 per night.

Macau Has Avoided This Trend Thus Far

Macau is the world’s largest casino jurisdiction in terms of gambling revenue. In 2019, this special administrative region of China earned over $35 billion in gaming revenue alone.

Therefore, you might expect the Las Vegas of the East to also charge resort fees. Surprisingly, though, Macau differs greatly from Sin City and many other gambling locations in this regard.

At the time of writing, no Macau casino currently requires a resort fee. Assuming you’ve ever been interested in visiting this lavish gambling destination, the lack of resort charges could provide more incentive.

Macau Casinos Do Charge Service Fees

Just because Macau avoids resort fees doesn’t mean that they don’t have additional charges. In this case, Macau casinos feature “service fees.”

A service fee refers to a small amount that covers gratuity for resort workers. These charges go towards tipping the bellhop, valet attendant, and any other employee who’s providing a service for you.

Of course, you can still tip these employees out of your pocket just like in Vegas, Atlantic City, or elsewhere. But the service charge is meant to cover such expenses.

You’ll pay a 10% to 15% service fee at the average Macau casino. This amount is usually lower than resort fees found in other casino hotspots.

Service Charge vs. Resort Fee

One main difference between a service charge and resort fee is that the former deals with gratuity. It merely covers what would normally be the cost of tipping resort employees.

You likely already tip no matter which gambling destination you visit. Therefore, a service charge can take place of what you spend in this area.

Service charges also appear on your bill before checkout, not after. As a result, they’re not as nefarious as resort fees.

Casinos purposely use the latter to trick people. They rely on resort fees to make the overall cost of their rooms are cheaper.

Will Macau Ever Go the Resort Fee Route?

20 years ago, resort fees didn’t exist in Las Vegas. Instead, casinos only charged the original booking cost.

Sin City began slowly changing in this regard, though, at the turn of the millennium. Certain casinos started tacking on resort fees.

This trend began in the general hospitality industry in the late 1990s. Vegas felt that they too should benefit from this gimmick.

Macau didn’t go corporate until the same point when Sin City dove into resort fees. 2001 marked when the Chinese government ended Stanley Ho’s monopoly over the district’s gambling industry.

Therefore, corporate casinos have been operating in this Chinese area for a decade and a half. Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts, and Wynn Resorts are some of the notable Macau operators.

They’ve yet to add the same ridiculous resort fees to their Macau locations that they do in Las Vegas. It’s shocking that they’ve resisted the urge to do so for this long.

However, this trend could easily change in the future. Macau resorts might get greedy and start adding resort fees to bills.

Of course, operators are currently enjoying the world’s most lucrative gambling destination. They likely see resort charges as overkill when they’re already bringing in a collective $35 billion dollars.

What Would Push Macau Casinos to Charge Resort Fees?

At the time of writing, things are going well in Macau.

It remains the most popular pure gambling destination by a long shot. Las Vegas ranks a distance seconds with $6.6 billion in gaming revenue, over four times lower than what Macau pulls in annually.

With that said, Macau might be perfectly happy with the status quo for years to come.

But will they continue resisting resort fees if revenue ever slows?

The biggest Vegas casinos were already requiring resort fees before the Great American Recession. However, even more Vegas gambling establishments started adding these costs following the recession.

It remains to be seen how Macau will in the future. But the latter could serve as motivation for corporations to explore resort fees.

Another aspect that might cause the world’s biggest gaming destination to add these unpopular charges is the domino effect. All it takes is one casino to start rolling out resort fees.

The competition would be motivated to follow suit. Much like in Vegas, this effect could eventually see every Macau casino requiring resort fees.

Conclusion

Macau remains one of the few gambling destinations that’s untouched by resort charges. Operators may not feel the need to require these fees when considering their massive amount of gaming revenue.

However, Macau has slowed as a casino sport but so has every other big casino spot. Perhaps the casinos here will consider resort fees when they’re running at full speed again.

For now, though, they only require service charges. The latter appear on a bill before checkout and are much more tasteful than resort fees.

If you hate resort charges as much as the next person, you’ll really appreciate this fact. You might even consider knocking Macau off your travel bucket list.