Antonio Lobo Vilela is a lawyer qualified to practice in Macau, Portugal, and Brazil. His practice is almost entirely focused on gaming law.
He was a senior legal adviser to the Commission of the first public tender to grant casino gaming concessions in Macau (2001-2002), and to the Macau Gaming Commission, a consultative body of, and presided over by, the Macau Chief Executive (2003-2009), dealing with the Hong Kong IPO projects of the Macau gaming operators, the financing projects, and the drafting of strategic papers on Macau gaming. He was also charged with (co)drafting the legal and regulatory framework for casino gaming, which is still in force, and the casino gaming concession and sub-concession contracts. He was a partner and founding member of LVT Lawyers, a boutique law firm focused on gaming law (2010-2015), and a legal adviser to the Secretary for Economy and Finance of the Macau government on gaming and gaming-related matters, as well as a member of the legislative affairs working group of the Macau Gaming Commission (2016-2020).
He was an extern at the Nevada Gaming Control Board (2021) and is a member of the Gaming Law Committee of the Brazilian Bar Association (Federal District, Brasilia). He currently lectures Gaming Law at the Faculty of Business Administration of the University of Macau.
Lobo Vilela has published several articles on gaming law, namely the Macau chapter at the Chambers & Partners Global Practice Guides on Gaming, Gambling & Licensing (2018), and is on the Expert Panel of The Law Reviews, a publication where he co-authors the chapter on Macau Gaming & Gambling.He is the author of the four-volume ‘Macau Gaming Law – Annotated with Comments,’ the most comprehensive book in English on the Macau (casino) gaming law (www.macaugaminglaw.com). He is also a regular speaker on events related to gaming.
He holds a Law Degree with honors from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and a Master's Degree/LL.M in Gaming Law & Regulation from the William S. Boyd School of Law, UNLV - University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
He is ranked in Chambers Asia Pacific 2015 (General Business Law), Global 2015 (General Business Law), Asia Pacific 2016 (General Business Law and Gaming and Gambling) and received from Global Awards the Gaming Lawyer of the Year 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021- 22 awards.
