Bill Hornbuckle, chief executive of casino group MGM Resorts, was confident last week that China’s regulatory crackdown on tech, education and online gaming would not extend to Macau, the world’s biggest gambling centre.

“We’ve gotten zero direct signal that there’s a concern at that level,” he told an investor event in Las Vegas. Even with 20-year casino licences set to expire next year, he exuded assurance, confidently predicting that MGM’s would be extended. “We are believing [our licence] gets extended: time to tell.”

But just one day later, authorities in the Chinese territory unveiled the biggest shock to the sector since the start of the pandemic: a sweeping proposal to increase oversight that could wrest control of the lucrative industry away from foreign shareholders.