GAMING | Macau increases scrutiny over junkets

Macau’s gambling regulator tightened its assessment of agents who bring in high rollers to its casinos, as the Chinese government heightened control over money flow into the territory.
Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ) recently issued a letter to junket operators “reminding” them to submit documents which prove that their agents have no criminal record, spokeswoman Wendy Wong said over the phone. There are no new rules, she said.
The notice comes after Chinese president Xi Jinping called for the Macau government to strengthen supervision of the gambling industry. Macau is seeking to curb money flows because of concerns surrounding the removal of illegal funds from the mainland into the territory through junket operators.
“The government wants to make sure the gambling industry is more regulated because in order to build a center for world tourism, the stigma that the industry projects must be removed,” Carlos Siu, an associate professor of gaming research at Macau Polytechnic Institute, said over the phone.
Xi had called for the diversification of Macau’s economy, which currently relies on casino gambling for more than 80 percent of revenue. He said the city should nurture new areas of growth to become a hub for tourism and leisure.
Xi’s anti-corruption drive has turned away VIPs, and has led to six straight months of decline for Macau’s casino revenue this year.
Junket operators are the middlemen who bring in high-
stakes gamblers to casinos and provide them with credit with which to gamble. They also work with agents who introduce clients and representatives who can commute between China and Macau to service high-end players and collect gambling debts, according to Siu.
Junket operators can also be better regulated in the licensing process, Siu said. The gaming regulator listed 219 licensed junket operators in 2012, less than the 288 Siu compiled from his own research.
Macau will start tightening restrictions on illicit money channeled through the city’s casinos with China’s Economic Crimes Investigation Bureau leading the move, the South China Morning Post reported last week. This will give the bureau electronic access to all transfers through state-backed China UnionPay Co.’s bank payment card in order to identify suspicious transactions, it said.  Bloomberg

FBI tracks links between poker players and junkets with criminal ties

The FBI is concerned over poker players being financially backed by junkets with suspected criminal ties, the Wall Street Journal reported. An American newspaper has been informed that the agency is tracking links between these two gambling communities.
The well-known middlemen of the Macau gaming industry– junket companies luring Chinese gamblers to the city’s casinos and providing them a way around China’s strict money transfer policies – have been building interest in poker and sports-betting operations, even though the game of choice among Chinese gamblers has always been baccarat.
Recently, an FBI bust in Las Vegas revealed an illegal soccer gambling operation allegedly run by junket executives, including former Macau junket operator Paul Phua and his son. He had been previously arrested in Macau over similar charges. Both have pleaded non guilty.
After busting this World Cup illegal gambling business operating out of luxury villas at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the FBI is now highlighting links among three gambling worlds: Macau high-roller junkets, online sports betting and high-stakes poker. U.S. authorities find these links worrisome, “given alleged organized-crime links and money-laundering risks in all these areas,” the WSJ report pointed out.
A former head of security for FIFA (the international body regulating football), Mr Eaton, said that with Asia’s crackdown on illegal sports betting, which is widely prohibited in Asia and the U.S., “junkets became one of the solutions to respond” to such a crackdown. U.S. law enforcement worry that “a dangerous combination” of junkets, sports betting and poker might lead to an increase organized crime as well as facilitating money laundering.