Crown Resorts administrator Jason O’Connor is rumored to possess been in China fall that is last collect on VIP gambling debts incurred by patrons who participated in the Australian gaming company’s junket schemes.
Billionaire James Packer announced this week that Crown Resorts will purchase $380 million in outstanding shares. Meanwhile, their executive responsible for VIP operations remains behind bars in Asia.
That’s according to a new report from ‘Four Corners,’ a journalism television show that airs in Australia. The program chatted to experts on Macau gambling that said they think O’Connor was sent by Crown to negotiate money owed to the business by wealthy Chinese citizens.
Andrew Scott, the CEO of Asian Gambling mag, said, ‘It’s commonly being said he had been there to gather line of credit. You don’t send an executive that is senior there’s an actual reason for him become here.’
O’Connor headed Crown Resorts’ VIP program, and was responsible for bringing rollers that are high Asian countries to Australia.
It’s illegal for international properties to market gambling services to Chinese citizens. The country warned organizations like Crown it would be cracking down on VIP touring operations, nevertheless the notice apparently dropped on deaf ears Down Under. O’Connor happens to be in custody since on vague ‘gambling crimes’ charges october. He’s being held in a Shanghai jail while Chinese law enforcement agencies continue their investigation.
In addition to O’Connor, China detained 17 other Crown employees, two more who are Australian residents.
Arrest Effect
China’s Operation Chain Break was designed to infiltrate the laundering of money going through Macau, the special administrative area where gambling is permitted. But the scope associated with the investigation expanded overseas after enforcement officers detected casinos and junket operators colluding to create wealthy residents to international resorts.
Since China is just a socialist country, those people who have money are heavily taxed. Each year under current law, citizens cannot move more than $9,500 out of the country.
With O’Connor behind bars, Crown’s VIP business plummeted significantly more than 45 percent.
Crown founder James Packer, whom sold 35 million shares of the company’s stock valued at $338 million August that is last the board in a damage control effort. The billionaire is still the shareholder that is largest, today owning 48.2 percent.
While Packer and Crown continue to work behind closed doors with China, there are brand new concerns that the company’s video gaming licenses in Australia could be in jeopardy if those being held in Shanghai are convicted of crimes.
Former NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority Chairman Chris Sidoti opined recently that regulators in Australia will likely review Crown’s licenses. Disciplinary actions could range from an easy slap regarding the wrist up to a complete elimination of their gambling licenses, since it would be based on China’s investigation though he admits the latter seems extreme.
Share Buyback
While there are many dark clouds surrounding Crown, the business announced this week it will buy AUD$500 million ($380 million) worth of outstanding shares on March 20. The buy-back will be completed considering the stock’s Australian Securities Exchange closing price on March 3 ($8.83).
Crown happens to be undergoing a massive restructuring following the arrests, nevertheless the buyback appears to tell investors that Packer remains bullish on the company he founded a decade ago.
MGM Cheering on Casino Expansion Opposition Group in Connecticut
MGM Resorts is rooting for casino expansion opponents in Connecticut to succeed in blocking a 3rd gambling place in the little state that is northeastern.
MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren wants to be sure a Connecticut casino isn’t allowed to be built just 13 miles south of their company’s resort in Massachusetts. (Image: WAMC)
Late last week, the Mohegan and Mashantucket tribes of Connecticut (MMCT) formally signed a development contract with East Windsor to build a $350 million satellite gambling facility into the town. The project will compliment the native groups that are american Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun resorts.
Positioned simply 13 kilometers south of MGM’s $950 million Springfield casino in Massachusetts, which can be now anticipated to open in 2018, Connecticut opted to enable the MMCT group to create a casino on off-reservation land to keep money that is gambling hawaii. But ‘No More Casinos in Connecticut’ is working to block the expansion, and MGM would like nothing more than to see the group succeed.
Tonight, ‘No More Casinos in Connecticut’ is keeping a meeting in East Windsor to discuss the ‘social and economic costs’ of inviting a casino to the area. Former US Rep. Robert Steele (R-Connecticut) provides their opinion that gambling isn’t good for communities.
Numerous Questions Remain
Connecticut’s Attorney General George Jepsen has been expected by Governor Dannel Malloy (D) to consider in on the legality of allowing the unified tribal groups to develop a gambling establishment on non-sovereign grounds.
Under the scheme developed by the state legislature and Malloy, Connecticut granted MMCT with all the right to develop another casino under their present gaming licenses. MGM states since the planned gambling location isn’t on sovereign property, outside parties needs been in a position to bid on the satellite location.
The casino that is nevada-based has filed case against Connecticut for what it believes is just a violation for the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The clause mandates that no state ‘shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of this regulations.’
MGM has been on a spending spree as of late. The company recently opened the $1.4 billion National Harbor resort outside Washington, DC, and is reportedly in talks with Las Vegas Sands to buy its casino in Pennsylvania in addition to buying out Boyd Gaming’s share of the Borgata in Atlantic City.
Scare Tactics
There is more than three million reasons why East Windsor wants the MMCT casino. The town stands to receive $3 million in advance from the groups that are tribal plus a minimum of $3 million annually thereafter.
Considering East Windsor hosts about 11,500 residents, that comes to roughly $260 per person, per year.
‘No More Casinos in Connecticut’ will endeavour and paint a dark picture during this evening’s hearing. Among the list of company’s 12 reasons for opposing casino growth, the group claims gambling ‘leads to debt, bankruptcies, broken families, and embezzlement,’ and that a casino’s business model ‘is dependent upon preying on people.’
The East Windsor Board of Selectmen will hold its own meeting on the casino to counter the MMCT discussion. The forum will take place on Thursday.
Protecting their unanimous decision to welcome the casino, Selectman Jason Bowsza told the Associated Press, ‘We’re acting in that which we think is into the interest that is best in the city. You can find likely to be those, like in every presssing issue, that would disagree . . . but we’re excited to move ahead.’
Adam Meyer, ‘Celebrity Tipster,’ Sentenced to Eight Years For Fraud, Extortion and Racketeering
Adam Meyer, once the self-proclaimed ‘sports consultant towards the stars,’ is sentenced to eight years in prison for charges fraud that is including extortion, racketeering and brandishing a firearm.
Was Adam Meyer, pictured here in his ‘showbiz’ days advising Darren Rovell’s CNBC show, actually working for the feds all along? The ‘sports consultant to the stars’ was sentenced to eight years in prison for a $45 million fraud on Friday. (Image: CNBC)
Meyer’s case was bizarre. Here was a high-rolling handicapper, whom once boasted that his customer list ‘reads just like the front web page of Variety,’ accused of impersonating a shadowy fictional gangster of his very own innovation in order to perpetrate a $45 million fraud that ended in the violent assault of a Wisconsin liquor magnate.
In his defense, Meyer advertised insanity, drug addiction, and that he was an undercover agent. Also more bizarrely, the claim that is latter actually be true.
Bogus Bookies
Meyer ended up being the CEO of betting consultancy site Real Money Sports, which charged clients up to $250,000 for his recreations advice that is betting.
A slick, media-savvy operator, he made frequent television and radio appearances as a tipster, billing himself as the man who had won over $1 million betting on the Green Bay Packers at Super Bowl XLV.
He told their clients he had a highly improbable 64.8 % edge over the bookies.
One particular client ended up being Gary Sadoff, 64, the aforementioned liquor magnate; the master, in reality, of the Badger Liquor Company of Wisconsin, the booze distributor that is biggest into the state.
According to the documents, Sadoff began tips that are buying Meyer back 2007 while the pair were buddies. As well as providing tips, Meyer would also hook his clients up with offshore bookmakers, who would accept their very large bets, no questions asked.
Meyer claimed, falsely, he had no relationship that is commercial these bookmakers, whereas, in reality, client money ended up being often wired to reports he actually controlled.
Wong Number
When Sadoff decided to quit their expensive gambling habit, Meyer concocted a tale. Meyer’s life is at risk because he owed money to a fictional bookie gangster named Kent Wong, and because Wong believed that Sadoff and Meyer were lovers, Wong held him liable for Meyer’s financial obligation, and was coming for him.
Meyer would also telephone Sadoff, pretending to to be Wong, complete having a Chinese accent, threatening and demanding money through the businessman.
When Sadoff declined to deliver additional money, the situation escalated. Meyer and an associate flew to Wisconsin and threatened Sadoff with a gun, until he was coerced into providing a further $9.8 million.
Meyer, and his associate, Ray Batista, were arrested briefly after the event, in December 2014, while the second sentenced to four years in January.
Insanity Plea
Meyer’s attorneys advertised their customer ended up being addicted to drugs and had health that is mental in which ‘a different identity, or personality, occasionally surfaces to Meyer’s detriment.’
Meyer additionally claimed the ‘public authority’ protection, and that his crimes were committed at the behest of several US government and law enforcement agencies for who he was an agent that is undercover. He said he had been employed by authorities to root away illegal activities operations that are betting.
The relevant authorities deny this, but documents unsealed in June, and kept secret through the public on the behest of Meyer’s lawyers, suggest, at least in a kind that is conspiracy-theory of, that there could be a modicum of truth in the claim.
Working for the Feds?
In 2007, the year he claimed he started doing work for the feds as an undercover agent, Meyer was arrested for scamming $6 million from casinos in Nevada and Connecticut. Considering he currently had a conviction that is criminal this time, he had been staring down the nose at a probably nine years imprisonment. Rather, he received two years probation.
‘That’s not a big departure [from sentencing guidelines],’ Jeffrey Cramer, a previous federal prosecutor in New York and Chicago, told the Milwaulkee Journal-Sentinal with the facts after it presented him. That’s huge. That’s absolutely huge.’
Did the sports consultant to a deal is cut by the stars aided by the feds in exchange for leniency? Unexpectedly Meyer’s assertion that he helped the FBI seize $750 million from offshore bookies does not appear quite therefore mad after all.
Amaya Debt Restructuring Designed to Keep Ex-CEO David Baazov in the Cold
PokerStars parent Amaya, Inc. has announced this has restructured its US dollar and euro-dominated first-lien loans in a bid to free up income. And one regarding the conditions for the refinancing agreement appears to reference previous CEO and David that is ex-chairman Baazov.
Amaya’s original cleopatra 2 slot machine top dog David Baazov dropped their takeover pursuit of the company year that is late last nevertheless now, new debt refinancing terms for the gaming operator have made another attempt by Baazov to grab the business impossible. (Image: pokerfuse.com)
The provision rather coyly calls for Amaya to distance itself from the co-founder and largest shareholder also to shackle him from launching a future bid to obtain the organization.
‘At the demand of certain lenders, the amendment also modifies the alteration of control provision to get rid of the ability of a particular shareholder that is current directly or indirectly get control of Amaya without triggering a meeting of standard and potential acceleration of this payment of the debt under the credit agreement for the first lien term loans,’ announced Amaya in the state statement on its refinancing.