lotteries and national lottery) illicit online gambling has always been a lucrative business. And most of these operations are Chinese owned and mostly based in Cambodia or the Philippines. In 2019 it was estimated that the amount gambled through online gambling in China was around US$145bn a year.


Cambodia shut down its online gaming sector at the beginning of the year whilst the Philippines has simply shrugged off the protest with Duterte saying he would not ban the industry.


Online casinos called POGOS (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator) have mushroomed in the Philippines with around 60 licensed POGOs in the country which apparently attract more than 100,000 Chinese nationals who work in the virtual casinos.


Around 90 to 95 per cent of customers are from China. Te Philippines did close down its online and landbased sectors in March during lockdown but this has since re-opened.


So in June the Chinese government launched a ‘whistle blowing’ platform to allow citizens to report any illegal cross border gambling with rewards for information leading to arrests.


Tis is part of the country’s ‘Strictly Combating Cross Border Gambling and Telecommunications Network Fraud during the Epidemic’ project claiming the cross border flow of funds for gambling was a national security risk.


Financing channels used by the online gambling sector and digital currency lending platforms were cut off and thousands arrested. Authorities froze bank accounts and seized more than $32.95bn.


Casinos and junket operators in Macau say this crackdown is hitting big spender VIP customers worried about financing channels via the junkets.


Te crackdown is impacting liquidity on top of the pandemic crisis. Te VIP junket sector in Macau accounts for almost 50 per cent of overall gambling revenues. Although most top junkets are not involved in online gambling, agents do use the channels to settle debts and provide credit for high rollers.


Tere was speculation that Suncity, a leading junket operator in Asia, was targeted by the Chinese authorities whilst according to reports some 900 players withdrew deposits from Suncity’s VIP clubs across Macau during a few days in July.


Suncity is controlled by junket boss Alvin Chau Cheok Wa with 16 VIP clubs in Macau. He denied the company had been targeted and in August Chau exchanged his existing HK$3.88bn shareholder loans into Perpetual Securities on an unsecured and unsubordinated basis and will lend the company up to HK6bn from his own pocket injecting a vote of confidence into the Suncity group.


Suncity is busy developing IR projects in Vietnam, Russia and Manila and is the largest shareholder of Summit Ascent Holdings Ltd


NEWSWIRE / INTERACTIVE / MARKET DATA P97


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