Crown Resorts professional Jason O’Connor is rumored to have held it’s place in China last fall to collect on VIP gambling debts incurred by patrons whom participated in the Australian gaming organization’s junket schemes.
Billionaire James Packer announced this that Crown Resorts will purchase $380 million in outstanding shares week. Meanwhile, their executive responsible for VIP operations stays behind bars in Asia.
That is based on a new report from ‘Four Corners,’ a journalism television series that airs in Australia. The system chatted to experts on Macau gambling having said that they think O’Connor was sent by Crown to negotiate money owed to the company by wealthy citizens that are chinese.
Andrew Scott, the CEO of Asian Gambling mag, said, ‘It’s widely being said he had been there to gather type of credit. You don’t send a senior professional unless there’s a genuine reason for him to be there.’
O’Connor headed Crown Resorts’ VIP system, and was in charge of bringing high rollers from Asian countries to Australia.
It is illegal for international properties to market gambling services to citizens that are chinese. The country warned businesses like Crown it might be cracking down on VIP touring operations, but the notice evidently fell on deaf ears right here. O’Connor is in custody since on vague ‘gambling crimes’ charges october. He’s being held in a Shanghai prison while Chinese law enforcement agencies continue their investigation.
In addition to O’Connor, China detained cleopatra free slot games 17 other Crown employees, two more who are Australian citizens.
Arrest Impact
China’s Operation Chain Break was designed to infiltrate the laundering of money moving through Macau, the special region that is administrative gambling is permitted. But the scope associated with the investigation expanded overseas after enforcement officers detected casinos and junket operators colluding to bring wealthy citizens to international resorts.
Those who have money are heavily taxed since China is a socialist country. 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 a lot more than 45 percent.
Crown founder James Packer, who 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 remains the biggest shareholder, today owning 48.2 percent.
While Packer and Crown continue to the office behind closed doors with China, there are new concerns that the company’s gaming licenses in Australia could take 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 review Crown’s likely licenses. Disciplinary actions could range from an easy slap regarding the wrist to a full removal of their gambling licenses, though he admits the latter seems extreme since it could be considering China’s investigation.
Share Buyback
While you will find numerous dark clouds surrounding Crown, the company announced this week it will purchase AUD$500 million ($380 million) worth of outstanding shares on March 20. The buy-back will be completed based on the stock’s Australian Securities Exchange closing price on March 3 ($8.83).
Crown happens to be undergoing a massive restructuring following the arrests, however the buyback generally seems to tell investors that Packer stays bullish regarding the company he founded ten years ago.
MGM Cheering on Casino Expansion Opposition Group in Connecticut
MGM Resorts is rooting for casino expansion opponents in Connecticut to achieve blocking a third gambling place in the tiny northeastern state.
MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren wants to be sure a Connecticut casino isn’t allowed to be built just 13 miles south of their business’s resort in Massachusetts. (Image: WAMC)
Late last week, the Mohegan and Mashantucket tribes of Connecticut (MMCT) officially signed a development contract with East Windsor to construct a $350 million satellite gambling facility in the town. The project will compliment the Native American groups’ Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun resorts.
Found just 13 miles south of MGM’s $950 million Springfield casino in Massachusetts, which is now expected to open in 2018, Connecticut opted to allow the MMCT group to construct a casino on off-reservation land in order to keep money that is gambling their state. 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 holding a meeting in East Windsor to go over the ‘social and economic costs’ of welcoming a casino to the area. Former US Rep. Robert Steele (R-Connecticut) provides his opinion that gambling isn’t good for communities.
Numerous Concerns Remain
Connecticut’s Attorney General George Jepsen has been asked by Governor Dannel Malloy (D) to weigh in on the legality of allowing the unified groups that are tribal create a gambling establishment on non-sovereign grounds.
Under the scheme developed by the continuing state legislature and Malloy, Connecticut granted MMCT aided by 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 to have been in a position to bid on the satellite location.
The casino that is nevada-based has filed a lawsuit against Connecticut for exactly what it believes is a violation regarding the US Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment. The clause mandates that no state ‘shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the protection that is equal of laws and 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’s more than three million reasons why East Windsor wishes the MMCT casino. The town stands to receive $3 million at the start from the groups that are tribal plus a minimum of $3 million annually thereafter.
Considering East Windsor is home to about 11,500 residents, which comes to approximately $260 per person, per year.
‘No More Casinos in Connecticut’ will endeavour and paint a picture that is dark this evening’s hearing. The group claims gambling ‘leads to debt, bankruptcies, broken families, and embezzlement,’ and that the casino’s enterprize model ‘is dependent upon preying on individuals. among the company’s 12 reasons for opposing casino development’
The East Windsor Board of Selectmen will hold its own meeting on the casino to counter the MMCT discussion. The forum will occur on Thursday.
Protecting their unanimous decision to welcome the casino, Selectman Jason Bowsza told the Associated Press, ‘we are acting in what we think is into the best interest in town. You will find likely to be those, like in almost any 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,’ happens to be sentenced to eight years in prison for costs fraud that is including extortion, racketeering and brandishing a firearm.
Was Adam Meyer, pictured here in their ‘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 jail for a $45 million fraud on Friday. (Image: CNBC)
Meyer’s case was bizarre. Here ended up being a high-rolling handicapper, who once boasted that his client list ‘reads just like the front page of Variety,’ accused of impersonating a shadowy fictional gangster of his own invention so that you can perpetrate a $45 million fraud that ended in the violent attack of a Wisconsin liquor magnate.
In his defense, Meyer stated insanity, drug addiction, and that he was an agent that is undercover. Even more bizarrely, the claim that is latter really be true.
Bogus Bookies
Meyer was the CEO of betting consultancy site Real Money Sports, which charged clients up to $250,000 for his sports gambling advice.
A slick, media-savvy operator, he made frequent TV and radio appearances as a tipster, billing himself as the person who had won over $1 million betting on the Green Bay Packers at Super Bowl XLV.
He told his clients he had a highly improbable 64.8 per cent edge over the bookies.
One such client was Gary Sadoff, 64, the aforementioned liquor magnate; the owner, in fact, of the Badger Liquor Company of Wisconsin, the booze distributor that is biggest within the state.
According to the documents, Sadoff began purchasing tips from Meyer back in 2007 and the pair were friends. Along with providing tips, Meyer would also hook his clients up with offshore bookmakers, who would accept their very bets that are large no concerns 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
Whenever Sadoff decided to stop their expensive gambling habit, Meyer concocted a tale. Meyer’s life is at risk him liable for Meyer’s debt, and was coming for him because he owed money to a fictional bookie gangster named Kent Wong, and because Wong believed that Sadoff and Meyer were partners, Wong held.
Meyer would even telephone Sadoff, pretending to to be Wong, complete with a accent that is chinese threatening and demanding money through the businessman.
When Sadoff declined to send more cash, the situation escalated. Meyer and an associate flew to Wisconsin and threatened Sadoff with a gun, until he was coerced into providing an additional $9.8 million.
Meyer, and his associate, Ray Batista, had been arrested soon after the event, in December 2014, plus the second sentenced to four years in January.
Insanity Plea
Meyer’s attorneys stated their client ended up being addicted to drugs and had mental health issues in which ‘a different identity, or personality, periodically surfaces to Meyer’s detriment.’
Meyer also claimed the ‘public authority’ protection, and that their crimes were committed during the behest of several US government and police force agencies for whom he was an agent that is undercover. He said he was used by authorities to root out illegal activities operations that are betting.
The appropriate authorities deny this, but papers unsealed in June, and kept secret from the public on the behest of Meyer’s lawyers, suggest, at least in a conspiracy-theory sort of way, that there could be a modicum of truth into the claim.
Working for the Feds?
In 2007, the year he advertised 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 already possessed a conviction that is criminal this time, he had been staring down the nose at a most likely nine years imprisonment. Alternatively, he received two years probation.
‘That’s maybe not a big departure [from sentencing guidelines],’ Jeffrey Cramer, a former 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 recreations consultant to the stars cut a deal aided by the feds in exchange for leniency? Instantly Meyer’s assertion that the FBI was helped by him seize $750 million from offshore bookies does not seem quite therefore mad after all.
Amaya Debt Restructuring Designed to Keep Ex-CEO David Baazov in the Cold
PokerStars parent Amaya, Inc. has announced it has restructured its US dollar and euro-dominated loans that are first-lien a bid to free up cash flow. And something of this provisions of this refinancing agreement appears to reference former CEO and David that is ex-chairman Baazov.
Amaya’s original top dog David Baazov dropped his takeover quest for the company year that is late last however now, new financial obligation refinancing terms for the video 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 its co-founder and largest shareholder also to shackle him from launching a future bid to obtain the business.
‘At the demand of specific lenders, the amendment also modifies the alteration of control provision to remove the ability of a particular current shareholder to directly or indirectly acquire control of Amaya without triggering a conference of default and potential acceleration associated with repayment of the debt underneath the credit agreement for the first lien term loans,’ announced Amaya in an official statement on its refinancing.