Saddled with financial burden dating back to the late nineteenth century including a hefty annual subsidy in support of Timor, successive governors in Macao looked to creative solutions to meet state revenues. Most favoured was a system of monopolies farmed out to local syndicates including bidding for exclusive rights for opium. The system also enriched the “farmers” — Macao’s pioneer comprador capitalists of the early twentieth century — with a number of them extending their business empires into banking and other services. While the most enduring of the monopolies and the one to which Macao’s regional and international reputation turns is gambling, the Farm which emerged as the major prop to government coffers in the pre-war period was that associated with opium. Not even the resumption of the opium monopoly by the State under Governor Tamagnini Barbosa in 1927, in line with League of Nations pressure, put an end to the system (with opium still providing 10% of state revenues down until its termination in 1946). Somewhat eclipsed in the literature with its current fascination with gambling, this article seeks to set down the rationale and justifications for what today is viewed as a highly immoral and contentious business, however lucrative in support of the local economy.