Macau gambling tycoon offers cash to rope in Hong Kong punters

Macau gambling mogul Stanley Ho is attempting to lure Hong Kong gamblers to his online casino with the promise of cash giveaways, ahead of new legislation that will make online betting illegal, a report said.

 

Ho's Caribbean-based website DrHo.com, which offers "two casinos for your playing pleasure" has sent emails to users of PCCW's Netvigator Internet service offering new punters 50 US dollars (390 Hong Kong dollars) to kick off their account.

 

A loophole in the government's Gambling Ordinance, first formulated in the 70s when there was no cross-border gambling or Internet, means the giveaway is not illegal.

 

However, the law is expected to be amended within months to make it illegal to make online bets from Hong Kong or even for gambling websites to be promoted in the territory, the South China Morning Post reported.

 

The promotion comes as the Macau government contemplates bids to secure licenses to operate casinos when Ho's 40-year monopoly franchise -- Asia's answer to the United States' gambling mecca of Las Vegas -- expires.

 

The government decided in September to end Ho's monopoly by the end of March and open up the gambling industry by offering three licences to global contenders.

 

However, the 78-year-old magnate and his firm Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM) are hotly tipped to secure one of the three licences up for grabs.

 

A spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, Carmen Lok, told the Post that the DrHo.com promotion "exploited the grey areas" in the law and illustrated that changes to the law were urgently needed.

 

"Failure to do so (change the law) means that the Hong Kong community remains vulnerable to unlimited, unregulated and uncontrolled gambling," she said.

 

Authorities have claimed that activities such as betting on football matches and Internet gambling deprive the government of revenue and also prevent charities from receiving donations from the Hong Kong Jockey Club.

 

The club runs the territory's two major legal forms of gambling -- horse racing and the mark six lottery. Gambling in licensed Mahjong parlours is also permitted.

 

It has long called for legal loopholes in Hong Kong's gambling laws to be closed to prevent billions of dollars going to illegal offshore bookmakers.

 

In the last racing season alone, illegal and offshore gambling in Hong Kong amounted to more than 80 million dollars, mainly from bets on overseas horse races and football matches.

 

Cybercafes becoming gambling dens

 

KOTA KINABALU: Most cybercafes in Sabah are only a little more than gambling dens with many of them getting protection from “higher ups’’.

 

And now there is renewed talk on a crackdown of such businesses that have flourished even in the smaller towns.

 

State Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Salleh Tun Said, who quietly walked into a cybercafe at a shopping centre here last week, personally observed some patrons using the computers for gambling purposes.

 

Salleh saw some patrons paying a RM10 deposit each to a counter staff and then headed to the nearest computer to try out their luck. 5g88

 

Some were even served alcoholic drinks as they gambled.

 

Kota Kinabalu mayor Datuk Ghani Rashid has also promised to launch a crackdown on owners of errant cybercafes, some of which were even allowing under-aged patrons to download pornographic materials from the Internet.

 

His warning came barely a week after a 58-year-old pensioner sought police protection from thugs for apparently failing to settle his gambling debts at a cybercafe he frequented.

 

Penampang district police chief Deputy Supt Joseph Joilis said the former civil servant had issued three cheques totalling RM63,000 as deposits that were supposed to be returned to him if he won in his gambling venture.

 

The pensioner told police that two men came to his house in Luyang claiming that the three cheques had bounced and demanded that he either settle his debt or they would assault him.

 

Such activities in cybercafes were allowed to flourish as their owners were “close friends’’ of certain politicians, said Consumers Association of Sabah president Patrick Sindu.

 

But the mushrooming of gambling activities at cybercafes was also due to the absence of specific laws relating to such businesses, Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Ramli Yusuff said.

 

He said this anomaly would be addressed once amendments to the Gaming House Act has been passed by Parliament.

https://5g881.blogspot.com/