Seminário Baccarat, Biopolitics, and Casino Capitalism in Macau

Portuguese explorers founded Macau in 1557 to serve as a port of trade between Europe and China at the origins of the global capitalist system. In 1999, Portugal returned Macau to the People’s Republic of China after nearly five centuries of administration. Over the next two decades, Macau was transformed into the most lucrative site of casino gaming in global history, and one of the wealthiest territories in the world. Billions of dollars of foreign investment in Macau’s casino industry have produced a phantasmagoric urban fabric comprised of themed casino megaresorts that attract tens of millions of annual tourists, the majority of whom travel from mainland China. This talk explores Macau’s indigenous regime of casino capitalism and the city’s pedagogical role in shaping citizen-consumers for China’s reform-era economy.

Tim Simpson is associate professor in the department of communication, University of Macau, where he has worked since 2001. He is currently a visiting research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands. The focus of this presentation is his recent book, Betting on Macau: Casino Capitalism and China’s Consumer Revolution (University of Minnesota Press, 2023).