Expats Get Their Gambling Fix

Living abroad for extended periods can often make one homesick, frustrated or just plain bored. Sometimes diversions are needed to make the time pass more easily, not to mention more profitably. Moviegoing, TV-watching, theater, walks in the park, swimming and other endeavors can make one forget the frequent tedium, but for a diversion satisfying not only in terms of time but money, gambling is a pursuit favored by many expatriates, particularly the casino-craving kind, for making the hours and days pass.

Some of the hotspot reviews procured from expatriates, or expats as they are more casually called, cite many favored gambling havens, but Singapore and China's city of Macau turn up with particular frequency. The latter, a one-time Portuguese colony acquired by the People's Republic in 1999, has enjoyed a long reputation as a famed gambling paradise, not to mention as an indirect source of income pre-acquisition. Since 1999, China, always hungry for foreign cash and capital, has given it a special status, allowing gambling, which is usually frowned upon in other parts of the country, to continue unabated.

Singapore has long been a worldwide banking and financial hub full of high rollers always eager to let off steam after a hard day's wheeling and dealing, and for that purpose gambling serves as a readily available release valve. When you add to that the fact that high rollers and expats are often one and the same, you have an instantly available and substantial audience for patronizing such establishments. The city-state's taxes are also extremely low, an added incentive for resident gambling junkies to go for the gold.

A caveat, though: both places are well known for their very strict policing. Beijing has recently begun cracking down on the traditional national habit of public spitting, and they're no less tolerant of the same practice when engaged in by foreigners. Consequently, expat gamblers known to swill a lot and let loose afterward should always find an appropriate receptacle for their emissions. Nor are Singaporean conditions any less stringent; that country is renowned for its policy of handing down jail sentences for spitting, littering and other kinds of inappropriate public behavior. So a word for the would-be worldly gambling expat: diversions are fine, just as long as they're not mixed with disorderliness.

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