A Macao casino tycoon was arrested on Sunday, January 30, two months following his most powerful rival, the Chinese authorities’ new crackdown on a sector that brews billions of dollars each year.
Chan Wen-ling is the founder of Tak Chun Group, the second largest junket from Macau. A “junket” is an intermediary that facilitates the arrival in Macao casinos of players by serving them both as a tour operator and as a lender. Mr. Chan is also the boss of the group of hotels and casinos Macau Legend Development, whose shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange fell by nearly 30% on Monday following the announcement of his arrest.
In November, Alvin Chau, owner of Macau’s biggest junket, Sun City, was also arrested by local police. He is accused, along with ten other leaders of his group, of having set up an illegal online gambling platform in the Philippines and of having attracted Chinese customers there.
Suspicions of collaboration between the two rivals
Mr. Chan was arrested for facts related to those for which Mr. Chau is accused, the Macau police said at a press conference. “Even though the two operations target two different groups, we have enough evidence to show that they are collaborating”, she said.
Macao, a former Portuguese colony, is the only place in China where gambling is allowed and has the largest collection of casinos in the world. The vast majority of players come from mainland China, from where they are brought by junkets, such as Suncity and Tak Chun.
For decades, casino magnate Stanley Ho held a monopoly on the local gambling industry. But in 2002 the authorities welcomed five new competitors, each of which obtained twenty-year concessions. A period shortened to ten years since this year for new licenses.
Before the pandemic, many wealthy Chinese officials and entrepreneurs would slum in Macau, betting lavishly and circumventing strict Chinese laws, which limit the amount of cash that can be taken abroad. But under pressure from Chinese President Xi Jinping, local authorities have recently embarked on a crackdown on money laundering and increased their oversight of casinos.
