On August 15, Macau junket investor Suncity Group celebrated the soft opening of a new VIP club at Resorts World Manila. Concurrently, it’s taking steps to scale down in Australia, following allegations that it is associated with organized crime groups. As a result, Alvin Chau, head of Suncity, has been banned from even entering Australia.
The new Manila club is located on the second floor of Resorts World, which was rebuilt after a 2017 arson attack that killed some three dozen patrons and staff members. The VIP room will officially debut on September 3 at the property, part of the Philippine capital’s Entertainment City casino complex near Manila International Airport. It features a total of five rooms and 22 tables.
The development is part of the property’s Phase III expansion which will also add three international-standard luxury hotels. Suncity said its new club means it is now operating in all the existing private-sector casino resorts in Manila. It already has clubs at City of Dreams Manila, operated by a unit of Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd.; Solaire Resort and Casino, owned and managed by Philippine casino operator Bloomberry Resorts Corp.; and Okada Manila, run by a unit of Japanese conglomerate Universal Entertainment Corp.
The firm also has 18 VIP gaming clubs in Macau, and 14 high-roller gambling clubs outside Macau namely in the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea and Australia. But according to Australian publication the Age, the world’s biggest recruiter of high-roller Chinese gamblers is dramatically scaling back its Australian operations following allegations of links to organized crime.
On August 16, Star Entertainment, Australia’s second largest casino operator after Crown Resorts, said a mutual decision had been reached with Suncity to shut down Suncity’s fixed high-roller room inside the Star’s flagship Sydney casino. Sources told the publication that Suncity’s fixed high-roller room at the Crown casino in Melbourne’s Southbank would also be closing as a result of the company’s retreat.
“The fixed room of Suncity will be discontinued here,” Star CEO Matt Bekier said. “They had a small fixed room. That room is being closed.”
Bekier would not comment on the extent to which Star, Australia’s second-biggest casino company, would continue to work with Suncity. Asked why the Star was still using Suncity, Bekier replied: “Why not?”
“Suncity is the largest junket operator in the world and we work in a very a prescribed and lawful way with junkets that are credible and have been approved, in some states, by the regulators.”
Reports from the Hong Kong Jockey Club obtained by the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and TV news program 60 Minutes reveal club officials were informed by Australian law enforcement in 2017 about suspected “large-scale money laundering activities” involving Suncity.
But Suncity told the Macau News Agency that its decision to close its VIP rooms at the properties of Australian gaming operators Crown Resorts and Star Entertainment was purely a commercial decision and not due to the recent media reports.
‘The VIP rooms of Suncity in Crown Melbourne and The Star Sydney have been discontinued, it is a commercial decision due to lack of demand and high operation costs in Australia. However, we still maintain a very close relationship with Crown and the Star,’ the group stated in a response to MNA.
The Herald reported that Star Entertainment has seen a 35 percent in its VIP business in the past year, as the concerns about the Chinese economy, the U.S.-China trade dispute and now, the junket controversy has caused high rollers to curtail their spending by up to 40 percent.
Meanwhile, Nicole Rose, CEO of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre, said the body known as Austrac is looking at the effectiveness of know-your-customer protocols for Australian casinos. The checks would consider whether there were any loopholes, and what role casino junkets play in the market. Austrac will work on the issue in cooperation with the ACIC.
