Three Australian and 15 Chinese employees at the Crown Casino in Melbourne have been arrested by Chinese police on suspicion of organizing a Chinese group to gamble in Australia, the Daily Mail reported.
Crown is Australia`s largest gaming and entertainment company, and its boss, James Packer, is the first person in the Australian gambling industry, with a fortune of A $5 billion elected Australia`s top 10 richest people.
As soon as this happened, Crown`s share price plummeted, and the market capitalisation evaporated by nearly 500 million yuan after the opening of trading on Monday. In preparation for construction, the casino project in Sydney`s Barangaroo has also been hit hard.
He told Australian media that the company was very concerned about the arrested employees. He even threatened to rescue the arrested staff "at all costs".
You know, little Pike is very confident about his influence, Macau Casino opened that year to invite plums to invite little plums.
However, the 18 employees will have to be brought to justice in China according to the personal and territorial principle.
Of the people arrested this time, it has been confirmed that there are Crown`s VIP International Business Heads, Jason O `Connor.
Why is Crown`s business presence in China? It turns out that, not only in Australia, Crown has its own casinos in almost every part of the world, such as Macau.
Originally, high-profile gamblers from China generally chose to spend in Macau, however, due to the increase in the management of China`s goverment in the past two years, the business of Crown in Macao has been greatly affected. Crown also intends to separate its overseas operations to form a separate listed company.
As a result, more and more Chinese choose to gamble overseas. The fierce competition in the international gaming industry has led Crown to send people to China every year to attract clients and organize a large gambling group to Melbourne.
There are also specialized personnel responsible for visa applications for gamblers in Australia, such as Jiang Ling, a member of the Chinese staff arrested this time.
But the old driver really rolled over this time. According to Chinese criminal law and its judicial interpretation. Those who organize more than 10 Chinese citizens to gamble abroad for the purpose of profit-making, collect kickbacks and introduce fees, shall belong to "crowd gambling" and shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance, and shall also be sentenced to non-equal fines.
China is a thorny piece of cake for the global gaming industry. On the one hand, the growing middle class has become the main consumer of casinos, with 1/3 of Crown`s profits last year coming from overseas high-profile gamblers. On the other hand, the tough crackdown policy also makes the operation team of each big gambling company suffer Waterloo repeatedly.
In fact, as early as last year, 13 Korean account managers and 34 Chinese managers from a Korean casino were arrested in China for the same reasons. Even Las Vegas giant MGM early withdrew its office in China.
"it`s a matter of suffering," says one gambling informer. The move by the Chinese police must be a head-on drink for Crown`s development in China. The loss of profits from China, Crown and where to go, will not be known. As for the catch-in-the-game.. I`m afraid it`s not that simple.
