{"id":17035,"date":"2021-04-20T16:51:47","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T16:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=17035"},"modified":"2026-04-23T20:14:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:14:05","slug":"singapore-three-sentenced-for-running-illegal-poker-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/singapore-three-sentenced-for-running-illegal-poker-club","title":{"rendered":"Singapore: three sentenced for running illegal poker club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Three people have been sentences to prison for creating an online poker club through a mobile app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Singapore.- Three people have been <strong>sentenced to prison for three months in <\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/genting-singapore-ebitda-to-remain-below-2019-levels-for-two-years\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/genting-singapore-ebitda-to-remain-below-2019-levels-for-two-years\" target=\"_blank\">Singapore <\/a>for violating the country&#8217;s Remote Gambling Act. <strong>Benjamin Ong Jia Wei, Serene Chan Li Shan, and Desmond Low Weimin<\/strong> must also pay <strong>a fine of S$20,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trio was a group of friends who, after continuously losing in poker, decided <strong>to open their own club through an online mobile app.<\/strong> Low registered the club by the name of <strong>Pokerrr2 <\/strong>and they went online in 2018.  The app operated for six months, from June to December 2019 and was used by 60-70 players. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The three men <strong>would communicate with users via a WhatsApp chat group <\/strong>on a daily basis, obtaining a 5 per cent commission which they later shared between them. It is believed that in November 2018, the club attracted as many as 29 players in one day, <strong>generating bet values as high as S$11,682.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The men were arrested on March 20, 2019, and pleaded guilty to violating Singapore&#8217;s Remote Gambling Act. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Singapore<\/strong> is among the many\u00a0Asian countries that prohibit online gambling. All forms of <strong>remote gambling <\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/singapore-six-charged-over-illegal-gambling-syndicate\" data-type=\"URL\" data-id=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/singapore-six-charged-over-illegal-gambling-syndicate\" target=\"_blank\">activity are illegal in the country.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three people have been sentences to prison for creating an online poker club through a mobile app.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Three individuals in Singapore have been sentenced to prison and fined for operating an illegal online poker club via a mobile app, violating the country's Remote Gambling Act. The \"Pokerrr2\" club operated for six months, generating commissions from 60-70 players before the operators were arrested and pleaded guilty. This case underscores Singapore's stringent prohibition on all forms of remote gambling.","focusai_entities":"Benjamin Ong Jia Wei, Serene Chan Li Shan, Desmond Low Weimin, Pokerrr2","focusai_location":"Singapore","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Singapore Gambling Act","query":"What specific provisions of Singapore's Remote Gambling Act were violated, and how do these provisions compare to other restrictive Asian iGaming jurisdictions?"},{"label":"Enforcement Impact","query":"What are the broader implications of this enforcement action for the prevalence of black market iGaming operations in Singapore and the region?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,153],"tags":[59,169],"class_list":["post-17035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-igaming-news","tag-poker","tag-singapore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17035"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17051,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17035\/revisions\/17051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}