The Macau government may increase the punishments for gambling crimes, including a broader range of jail sentences and greater restrictions on suspects being held in “preventive detention.”
According to GGRAsia, the change is part of a proposed revision of the city’s Illegal Gambling Regime, which would be renamed the “Law to Combat Gambling Crimes.”
In the proposal, the government specifically targets under-the-table bets, known as multiplier bets, in which official casino wagers are secretly multiplied and settled at a later date, tax-free. The proposal also would include greater penalties for online betting.
Coco Leong Weng In, director of the city’s Legal Affairs Bureau, said, “Our suggestion is that we are increasing the imprisonment terms—including for the illegal operation of games of fortune and illegal operation of mutual betting—from the existing maximum of three years to (a range of) one year to eight years.
“Considering the crimes defined in this legal proposal … we have proposed extending the preventive detention period for such activities…by two months to one year.”
André Cheong Weng Chon, spokesman for Macau’s Executive Council, noted “recent cases” in which offenders were “penalized accordingly.” The highest profile cases involved former Suncity Group junket king Alvin Chau, jailed for crimes including the facilitation of multiplier bets. Chau was convicted in January and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Levo Chan, former head of the Tak Chun junket, got 14 years for similar crimes.
Cheong said “there have been different interpretations” of the law that presumably could lead to loopholes. “That is why we now proposed to include this (multiplier) as an illegal operation of games of fortune in clear terms,” Cheong said, “so that we can avoid seeing different interpretations on what constitute the criminal elements to such crime.”
The proposal also suggests that people placed in preventive detention for alleged illegal games of fortune or mutual betting would be banned from communicating with anyone but their lawyers prior to judicial interrogations.
Given that many of these crimes take place at night, the proposal also would give law enforcement the legal right to search residences between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. for “specific crimes.”
“As long as (officers) comply with the criminal procedure, they can enter the residence to search without the need to obtain the consent of the person at the time,” said Leong.
The proposal also would provide additional protections for informants.
