{"id":33964,"date":"2022-09-29T22:52:48","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T01:52:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=33964"},"modified":"2026-04-23T04:24:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T07:24:56","slug":"former-suncity-accounting-director-says-company-had-side-betting-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/former-suncity-accounting-director-says-company-had-side-betting-operation","title":{"rendered":"Former Suncity accounting director says company had side-betting operation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Faye Lao has told court that there was a connection between Suncity and an off-books betting business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Macau.- Faye Lao<\/strong>, a former accounting director at Suncity Group, has declared that the Macau junkey operator Suncity was involved in off-books betting. Giving evidence in the Suncity trial at The Court of First Instance yesterday (September 29), he is the first witness to say that Suncity was directly linked to under-the-table betting<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cheong Chi Kin<\/strong>, an ex-colleague of former Suncity CEO Alvin Chau Cheok Wa and a co-defendant in the trial, had previously told the court that he ran two companies that facilitated under-the-table betting <\/strong>and brought customers to VIP rooms at Suncity. However, he said his companies had no affiliation with Suncity <\/strong>or Chau Cheok Wa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Macau Business, Faye Lao<\/strong> told prosecutor Lai U Hou<\/strong> that the side betting businesses, Main Camp, belonged to Suncity. When asked if Chau Cheok Wa owned Main Camp, Faye Lao said: “It can be said Main Camp belonged to Chau Cheok Wa.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faye Lao also said that profits were deposited into an \u201cOperation Reserve Card\u201d account<\/strong>, one of Suncity’s VIP cash accounts. She did not specify whether the account belonged to the junket operator, its clients, or its shareholders<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said that from around 2015, monthly results of the under-the-table betting business were sent to Chau via phone messages, along with results and other information from Suncity. Chau’s legal counsel, Leong Weng Pun, questioned how the witness had learned that Suncity owned Main Camp and whether there were any documents supporting her claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alvin Chau Cheok Wa<\/a> has denied accusations that he ran under-the-table betting for high rollers. However, Lai U Hou referred to conversations and text messages obtained by the police that allegedly showed Chau\u2019s role in the practice also known as multiplier betting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thursday’s session also focused on the proxy betting business<\/a> through which a criminal syndicate headed by Chau is acccused of receiving indications from gamblers through telephones or online devices that were then carried out with the help of an operator in a physical casino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chau had told the court that Suncity only offered such services in overseas markets, such as the Philippines<\/strong>. The former CEO of Suncity Group said the company stopped operating proxy betting services through the Philippines in 2019, transferring the operations to a man named Richard Yong Seng Chen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Chau, after the transfer, the proxy betting business was named UE. However, Lao said Suncity was still paying staff salaries and other business costs. He also said that Suncity still received 50 per cent of the profits generated by UE<\/strong>, while 30 per cent went to Yong Seng Chen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial continues today (September 30).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Faye Lao has told court that there was a connection between Suncity and an off-books betting business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26756,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A former Suncity Group accounting director has testified in court, directly linking the Macau junket operator to \"off-books\" and \"proxy betting\" operations, alleging that profits were channeled into Suncity accounts and that the company maintained financial ties to a proxy betting entity post-divestment. This testimony contradicts previous claims by former CEO Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, intensifying scrutiny on Suncity's historical governance and regulatory compliance.","focusai_entities":"Faye Lao, Suncity Group, Cheong Chi Kin, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, Main Camp, Richard Yong Seng Chen, UE","focusai_location":"Macau, Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.9), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Impact on Macau GGR?","query":"What are the potential long-term implications of these alleged illicit betting activities on Macau's overall Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and its regulatory framework for junket operations?"},{"label":"Regulatory Enforcement Scope?","query":"How might these revelations influence the scope and intensity of regulatory enforcement actions against other junket operators and their associated casino partners in Macau and other jurisdictions?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439,158],"tags":[1427],"class_list":["post-33964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","category-slider-home","tag-suncity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33964","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33964"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34007,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33964\/revisions\/34007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}