The following TripReport snippet is taken from 2003/01 Murasaki - Sin City, Chinese-Style (Macau)

Freelancers

I found two primary areas where the freelancers work. On my first night, I went into the Lisboa casino and walked around. The Lisboa is the largest casino in Macau. It's puny by Vegas standards, but there are still three floors and lots of smaller rooms on the sides to gamble in.

The layout of the first floor is circular in nature. A round walkway encircles the casino floor, and it is on this walkway that a number of girls go fishing for customers. You can rarely tell they are working girls by the way they dress, as the vast majority dress in regular street wear. You just watch them, and if you see them constantly walking around and approaching guys from time to time, then you know what they're up to. On the first night, I was asked by several girls if I wanted a "massage" (massage is the code word everywhere in Macau for fucking). None of them that night appealed to me, but I did ask how much and where. Some of them have rooms in the hotel, so we would have headed for the elevators. Others have rooms in nearby buildings, so it would have been a few minutes walk. The prices quoted to me were $500 for short time (about $65 US). Very few of these girls speak any English at all. Negotiations were mostly conducted by holding up fingers. Sometimes they would grab a friend to help out who could speak a little English.

All of the girls working the casino were mainland Chinese. On my second night, I went back to check out the selection and there was a hot girl wearing a black leather mini-skirt (I have a weakness for Asian girls wearing black leather mini-skirts). On the first pass she asked for $1500, and I said I would only pay $500. On the next pass she lowered the demand to $1000, but that was still way too much. I couldn't get her down to $500, so I gave up on her. I had seen a couple of other decent looking girls that night, but when I went looking again after giving up on the skirt, they were gone (I'm assuming they found customers and went to their rooms).

So I left the casino and decided to head over to the Windsor Sauna (more on that later). There is a pedestrian mall that runs for several blocks, parallel between Avenida de Amizade and Rua de Pequim. I discovered that this area has a number of freelancers, all mainland Chinese. On the streets outside the Lisboa, and towards the pedestrian mall area, you can find a lot of Russian girls if that's your thing. The Russian girls also work in the Crazy Paris show at the Lisboa, and you'll see them inside the hotel area, though not the casino.

Anyway, I was just heading into the pedestrian mall when a group of ladies handing out flyers advertising phone numbers for escort services accosted me. While they were shoving pictures of beautiful naked women into my hands, I felt a light hand wrap around my arm, and I turned to looked into the smiling face of an attractive, petite Chinese girl who wanted to be my friend for the next hour for $500.

I had a copy of this post and based my visit to the Lisboa Casino based on it. I didn't do more research because this one looked detailed enough and I was focusing most of my effort on Hong Kong.

I visited the Lisboa Casino several times at different hours of the night and only saw girls that appeared to be possibly be prostitutes once.

After describing my experience to Xenono upon my return, he would inform me that there was a basement level where all the girls hung out. I saw some stairs leading down, but never saw anyone go down there so I didn't think much of it.

So if you go to the Lisboa looking for freelancers, forget about the casino level and head downstairs.

In October, I witnessed the Chinese freelancers working on the pedestrian walkway mentioned above mostly from early morning until about noon. After noon, a few would be scattered here and there, but they were harder to find and seemed to be more concerned about being caught by the police.

I was somewhat impressed by the looks of some of these freelancers, although they were more of the girl next door type of beauty.

Prime hours for finding the Chinese street girls seemed to be from about 6am-10am, but this is only an approximate from memory.

Restaurante Imperador is located on this walkway and has a wide and varied menu in English. It opens around 11am, but the Eastern European freelancers don't start hanging out here until 8pm or later. They would take up at least two tables for most of the night. I rarely saw them approached, but they had to pick up some business. Lookswise, they were several notches down from what you could find in Germany. A few were acceptable, but the better looking ones in Macau were working the Saunas. (at least at Big Boss and Darling)



Murasaki recently mentioned not seeing many freelancers in this area during his visit, so a crackdown may have taken place in the past couple months.

Dart, you should have taken my second Macau trip report, from 2004! I talk about the basement level area in the Lisboa in that one. I didn't know about that basement when I was there in 2002. There were tons of girls down there this trip, but like I said in another post, I couldn't get any of them to budge from $1000 HK, so I never partook.

The basement is trick to find at first but you won't have any doubts that you've found it once you do.

Mura, that HK 1K demand is definitely not a good development. I always figured the freelancers would get spoiled now that Macau is bustling w/ tourists and new casinos.

Interesting bit of trivia about Lisboa freelancers that Crazier told me about. Ever notice how the freelancers walk so quickly from one end to the other, it turns out they are allotted 1 hour shfits to patrol before another shift takes their place. This makes sense as there is another "shift" waiting at the restaurant and cofee shop.

I don't know if anyone has confirmed the status of the freelance scene here, but other options that haven't been mentioned are the escorts that advertise with handouts. Of course, you need the assistance of someone who can read and speak Chinese if you can't do so yourself. I received a bunch of handouts, but couldn't call any. I would have been all over this girl.

d'Artagnan is that $100HK?? like $12US? Can anyone read what you get for $12?

Anyway, would she be average or top shelf compared to the rest of the working girls in Macau?

I assume it's US dollars. I'd say she is about average, maybe a little higher quality comparable to the girls found in the nicer saunas which cost about $170 US dollars after currency conversion. There are a number of better looking girls in the saunas, but they're just expensive.

Then again, since I couldn't read anything and couldn't ask anyone, maybe the escort assumption is wrong, but I doubt it.

$170 usd ..wow i see why i never been there!!

I've received tons of those flyers in Macau as well. The pictures are never of the actual girls available; they're usually of Japanese porn stars (I've recognized several of them). If you look closely at the one you posted, you'll see in the lower left-hand corner that this is a picture that one of the ubiquitous scanners on Usenet has worked on (Scan Collection). He posts a lot of Japanese stuff in the newsgroups.

The price is HK dollars. I was told once that it was an intro price for something like a very brief massage, and once you were hooked up with the girl, you would find out what other services were available along with the prices.

I never wrote about these things because it does require language skills, something beyond the realm of 99% of this board.

Originally posted by Murasaki in 2006/02 Murasaki's Macau User Manual

You need to keep your wits about you, as opportunities can arise quite quickly on the streets of Macau. On the west side, I've found freelancers hanging outside the Hotel Man Va on the corner of Rua da Caldeira and Trv. Da Caldeira. These girls seem to be working out of the Wo Ping Boarding House, located just across the street from the Man Va. I've also found a small group hanging around near where the Travessa das Virtudes meets Trv. Do Auto Nova. I've exchanged glances with girls in Senado Square who were obviously available, but I didn't partake. These girls can be gotten pretty cheap, for around $200, sometimes even less. They are mostly over the hill, but I bagged one hottie outside the Man Va.

Over in the main hotel district, there are two main areas to find freelancers. The first is the ground floor shopping arcade of the Lisboa Casino/Hotel complex. There is an infamous parade of working girls roaming the corridors down there. They have pretty established rules. A certain number are permitted to prowl looking for customers for a given time. The other girls lie in wait in the big coffee shop until their turn comes up. Then they go marching. These girls usually follow a pattern of moving up and down one of the main corridors, back and forth until they bag a customer or their time is up and they have to head into the coffee shop.

Should you go with one, the dirty deed will be done in her room in the Lisboa. The unfortunate thing with these girls is the pricing. Prior to my most recent trip, they asked for $500 HK (except during Grand Prix week, when their prices shot up to $1000). However, on my last visit, they were all asking $1000 HK. I couldn't get any to budge. In my book, that is way too much money for a working girl from China, especially when I can get the same thing on the west side for $300. That's even more expensive than many of the saunas, where you may get a guaranteed 90 minute session, plus other amenities, for your fee.

The other area on this side of town is "freelancer alley," a pedestrian mall that kind of starts at the Lisboa on the northeast side and runs several blocks, behind the Fortuna, Landmark, and Holiday Inn hotels. This alley seems to be prone to police crackdowns, so don't always expect to find any action here. There were no girls on any night I was there on my last trip; however I did find a couple working there my last morning before heading to the airport. In the past, late nights were a great time to pick up girls in this alley. YMMV depending on your visit. All these freelancers usually ask for $500.

The north corner entrance to the Lisboa used to be a major hang out spot for Russian freelancers; they too are subject to crackdowns and may move their operating base as a result. Keep your eyes open if that's what you're looking for.