Part of IPI inventory to be repurchased by Angel Playing Cards

Angel Playing Cards will repurchase the 201 Super Angel Eye dealing shoes and unused decks that it sold to IPI.

Northern Mariana Islands.- IPI’s receiver Clear Management Ltd has announced the first transaction in its sale of Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC’s assets. And the buyer is the original seller. Angel Playing Cards (APC) will repurchase the 201 Super Angel Eye dealing shoes and unused decks that it originally sold to IPI.

APC will pay $1,500 each for the shoes ($301,500 in total) and 10 cents per deck ($1.9m in total). According to Saipan Tribune, in 2016, IPI purchased 1,935,360 decks of playing cards from APC, with the final purchase and shipment of the deck taking place in January 2020. 

Playing cards, however, have a limited lifespan, and when casinos stop using them, they are often destroyed or cancelled, so the deck inventory is now less. In Clear Management’s view, there is little market for used playing cards because they cannot be used in casinos and are only used for training purposes.

Clear Management and APC agreed that the proposed buyback price was reasonable and represented more than the maximum value they could achieve on the market.

Earlier this month, Commonwealth Casino Commission executive director Andrew Yeom stressed that the CCC must monitor the auction of casino operator Imperial Pacific International’s gaming assets to monitor where items go.

He told the Saipan Tribune that the movement of IPI’s gaming assets in the jurisdiction is under CCC’s purview and that the CCC needs to track game assets to ensure they don’t fall into the hands of unlicensed operators. Yeom also said the regulator wants to ensure that any CCC labels and/or seals on machines are removed. He also stressed that the CCC must be kept up to date on IPI’s gaming equipment inventory.