The Macao government has denied media reports that say China’s official cryptocurrency, the digital renminbi, may be introduced to casinos in the enclave.

Purported plans about the currency, first reported by the Bloomberg news agency on Tuesday, were seen as a threat to the already beleaguered casino industry, whose revenue fell by US$27 billion this year as a result of travel bans.

Casino chips in Macao are now denominated in Hong Kong dollars. If gamblers no longer needed to convert their yuan into Hong Kong dollars, middlemen for Chinese high rollers would lose business, Bloomberg said in its report.

Those middlemen, known as junkets, organize private jets and hotel stays on top of providing credit to high rollers, who make up half of the city’s gambling revenue.

Bloomberg cited sources in reporting that Macao’s regulator, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, had approached casino operators over the past months to discuss the possibility of using China’s cryptocurrency to sell casino chips.

The bureau on Wednesday issued a statement calling the report false.

In the report, Bloomberg said a shift to the digital renminbi would make transactions more traceable. Cash flows through Macao casinos were expected to be more transparent to Beijing, potentially putting off high rollers from using the junket system, it said.

Casino operators such as Suncity were accelerating their expansion outside Macao in anticipation of the cryptocurrency move, the report said, citing a source familiar with the matter.

If the digital renminbi was rolled out in Macao casinos, it would cut off money laundering activities and outflows, the report said.

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