The Las Vegas-based company puts its fleet of private jets and limousines at high-rollers’ disposal, night and day, and comps their stays in suites that run to 8,000 square feet and come with on-call concierges, according to its 2012 annual report.

Gambling Parlors

Casinos are also setting up their own high-stakes gambling parlors in Macau, with sizable minimum bet hurdles.

A few years ago, most of these sorts of clubs operated in what a report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group created by Congress to monitor China, called “a gray financial market.” They were run only by junkets, as independent contractors renting space inside the casino operators’ buildings and outside the direct oversight of Macau’s gaming regulator, according to the report.

Ho, now 92, had a gambling monopoly in Macau while it was a Portuguese colony and for a few years after the city came under Chinese control in 1999. Loan sharks were often on the lookout for marks in gaming halls, according to a report by the New Jersey gaming enforcement agency, and there was a wave of violence in the 1990s as gangs battled for control of high- stakes rooms.

One of the crime bosses arrested during the decade’s VIP room wars was Wan Kuok-koi, known as “Broken Tooth.” He was convicted in 1999 of loan sharking and triad membership after his arrest during an investigation into a car-bomb attack on the local police chief, and released from prison in December 2012 into a very different city.

Extensive Links

Macau has 35 casinos, with more planned, and glitzy hotel towers and shopping malls stocked with brands including Rolex, Dior and Prada. It’s increasingly attracting tourists who aren’t hard-core gamblers with spas, concerts, theaters, fine dining and family-friendly entertainment.

High rollers’ share of Macau gambling revenue peaked at 73 percent in 2011.

Some junkets are diversifying in response. Suncity, for one, has set up VIP clubs in South Korea and the Philippines and branched out to movies, music and immigration consulting, according to its website and a brochure. Still, it continues to serve customers in Macau casinos, including Galaxy Entertainment and Sands China.