{"id":777001580,"date":"2023-01-18T06:50:05","date_gmt":"2023-01-18T09:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777001580"},"modified":"2026-04-23T01:28:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T04:28:00","slug":"alvin-chau-sentenced-to-18-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/alvin-chau-sentenced-to-18-years-in-prison","title":{"rendered":"Alvin Chau sentenced to 18 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Suncity Group’s founder, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, and 20 other people were indicted for illegal gaming, criminal association, fraud, and money laundering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Macau.- The Macau Court of First Instance, chaired by Judge Lou Ieng Ha<\/strong>, sentenced\u00a0Alvin Chau Cheok Wa<\/strong>, the former CEO of Suncity (now\u00a0LET Group Holdings Ltd<\/a>), to 18 years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chau, together with other 20 people, was indicted for allegedly leading a criminal group<\/strong>, providing illegal gambling at licenced establishments and making illegal online and proxy bets.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the judge, the charges with which he was accused were proven during the trial. However, he was not convicted of money laundering<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the defendants have 20 days to appeal the sentence <\/strong>before the Court of Second Instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge said Chau Cheok Wa had for years been involved in under-the-table betting for high rollers for years. She also said that Suncity Group was also linked to such illegal activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge also acknowledged in her comments that the under-table-bet operations conducted by Chau and some of the other defendants constituted fraud against the Macau government and the city’s six casino operators, disrupting the proper process of taxation, and affecting the ability of the operators to obtain profit from their clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legal counsels of the local units of Wynn Macau Ltd, MGM China Holdings, SJM Holdings Ltd, Sands China Ltd and Galaxy Entertainment Group have asked the court to award them damages<\/a> due to lost earnings as a result of Chau\u2019s alleged operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wynn Macau Ltd was seeking damages of MOP795.2m from Chau and six other defendants in the case. Sands China<\/strong> seeks HKD300.7m and SJM Holdings<\/strong> HK$17.2m. MGM China has asked the court to decide the amount. There was no information in regard to a claim by Galaxy Entertainment.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alvin Chau Cheok Wa<\/strong>\u2018s attorney Leong Hon Man<\/a> had denied claims that any under-the-table bets affected operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court also ordered Chau and five of the convicted defendants to pay over HKD8.67bn in compensation to the Macau government and a number of casino operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suncity Group’s founder, Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, and 20 other people were indicted for illegal gaming, criminal association, fraud, and money laundering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":21187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, founder of Suncity Group, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Macau Court of First Instance for illegal gaming, criminal association, and fraud, though acquitted of money laundering. The court found Chau orchestrated extensive under-the-table betting operations, defrauding the Macau government of tax revenue and causing significant lost earnings for licensed casino operators. Several major casino operators are seeking substantial damages, with the court ordering over HKD8.67bn in compensation to the government and operators.","focusai_entities":"Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, Suncity Group, LET Group Holdings Ltd, Macau Court of First Instance, Lou Ieng Ha, Wynn Macau Ltd, MGM China Holdings, SJM Holdings Ltd, Sands China Ltd, Galaxy Entertainment Group, Leong Hon Man","focusai_location":"Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.95), operator_casino (1.0), payments_fraud_aml (0.75), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Appeal Impact","query":"What are the potential implications for the Macau gaming market and the awarded damages should Alvin Chau's appeal to the Court of Second Instance be successful or result in a reduced sentence?"},{"label":"Operator Recovery Strategy","query":"How will the awarded HKD8.67bn in compensation be distributed among the affected casino operators, and what strategies will they employ to recover these lost earnings and mitigate future illicit activities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439],"tags":[23911,1427],"class_list":["post-777001580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-suncity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777001580","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=777001580"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777001580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777001581,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777001580\/revisions\/777001581"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777001580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777001580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777001580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}