Wan Kuok Koi
The former leader of Macau’s branch of the well-known 14K triad, “Broken Tooth” Wan Kuok Koi, has partnered with a Beijing- based firm to allegedly support gaming tournament and events in the mainland China island of Hainan that include chess and poker, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.
According to several reports, Wan’s investment firm has partnered with Zhonggongxin Cosmos (Beijing) Internet Technology Limited (Zhonggongxin Cosmos) to establish a chess and poker tournament, to be held in October in Hainan.
Another report from the cryptocurrency-specific website Bitcoinist.com, cites a Zhonggongxin Cosmos staff member named Guo Jia, saying that the prize money for the tournaments should be the equivalent to around RMB10 million (over MOP12 million) and should consist of a mix between cash and block chain currency “HB” tokens.
The deal, which was facilitated by the launch of an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) operation for the HB tokens, reportedly gathered a total of USD750 million (over MOP6 billion) in less then five minutes after the launch.
Several reports note that the launch of Wan’s ICO was held at an exclusive event, which took place in Cambodia. Wan continued to successfully sell his HB tokens in Thailand and the Philippines, reporting an overall sale of 450 million tokens out of a total of 500 million offered to the public. This ICO offering tour is set to conclude tomorrow in Malaysia, where the remaining 50 million will be offered to the public. The total investment amount is set at one million tokens, but only 50 percent (500 million) will be offered to the public.
According to the SCMP, there are questions being raised over both the origins of the Chinese company and the chess and poker tournaments.
Zhonggongxin Cosmos is a subsidiary of Zhonggongxin Assets Management Limited, which has a large business-related investments portfolio including asset management and construction projects in Russia. There are is some suggestion that it is state-owned.
Information provided by the company’s official website indicates that it reports directly to an advisory committee under the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), called the Advisory Committee on the Management of Financial and Energy Resources and Capital.
However, the SASAC in reply to the SCMP said that it did not have such an advisory committee, although it would not confirm whether Zhonggongxin Cosmos has ties to the Chinese state.
A lottery industry veteran, Su Guojing, quoted by the SCMP said that the use of cryptocurrencies as payment in chess and poker games in China is neither legal nor illegal, falling instead in an unregulated grey area.
“When chess and poker games are paid with tokens such as cryptocurrencies that can be converted to fiat currencies, it becomes a disguised form of gambling in China,” adding, “there’s a legal loophole on this issue.”
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