November 29, 2021 · Asia-Pacific Gaming crime

United Nations Celebrates Alvin Chau Arrest, Analysts Say Bad for Future Junkets

Alvin Chua is innocuous until proven guilty of the illegal cross-border gambling charges he’s facing inward China. But the United Nations says his stoppage is nonetheless a prescribed development.

Chua, the Chinese billionaire who amassed his fate through and through his founding of the Suncity Group, is existence held by authorities inwards Macau. Local officials in that respect say an investigating into his businesses’ trading operations is ongoing. The metropolis of Wenzhou is seeking Chau’s extradition to the Zhejiang Province. He testament human face charges of illegally running online casinos and gambling excursions to Macau.

Macau’s VIP junkets hold long been accused of potentially facilitating the laundering of money for mainland China’s richest people. The UN says Chau’s stay should follow a major wake-up telephone call for the junket industry.

Chau’s stop stock warrant is no doubtfulness sending shockwaves through unionized law-breaking in Hong Kong and Macau, but also Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines,” said Jeremy Douglas, the Regional Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

The UNODC’s main focus is the trafficking and revilement of illicit drugs, as well as exposing outlaw syndicates, international terrorism, and political corruption.

Arrest Further Damages Junkets

In his release, Little Giant added that Suncity has been linked to major dose traffickers and money laundering networks for many years. Alvin Chau’s arrest only when adds negativeness to junket systems throughout Asia that already don’t make necessarily glowing reputations.

Gaming analysts at JPMorgan who are focused on Macau and other Asian casino markets say Chau’s detention presents a sober futurity for VIP promoters inward the Chinese enclave.

What’s the impact? Really badness for the junket/VIP industry,” JPMorgan analysts DS Kim, Amanda Cheng, and Livy Lyu noted. “It goes without saying that Mr. Chau is arguably the biggest — and certainly most famous — figure inward the junket industry, as the founder/CEO of the undisputed biggest junket in the world, Suncity, which accounted for 40 percent to 45 percent of the junket market.”

The Asian gaming specialists say Chau’s arrest, despite him maintaining that he nor Suncity have got occupied in any illegal operations, testament likely panic attack other junket operators.

“The fact that fifty-fifty he tin can follow arrested for just running the junket — what seems to us the like real normal junket activities — should send out a pall knock down the sticker of any and all junkets,” the JPMorgan promissory note added.

VIP Numbers

The JPMorgan analysts say Chau’s stay is a wake-up phone call for junkets, but won’t needfully hold a disconfirming long-term impact on Macau casinos. However, gaming numbers inwards the part are stock-still hard propped up past junkets.

According to the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau, VIP junket rooms accounted for just about 40 percent of the region’s porcine gaming revenue (GGR) in pre-pandemic 2019.

Macau’s Captain Hicks licensed gambling casino operators collectively generated rough $36.4 1000000000000 that year. That way junket rooms won around $14.6 1000000000 from their high-end clientele.

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