{"id":17836,"date":"2016-03-03T14:37:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T22:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=17836"},"modified":"2016-03-03T15:10:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T23:10:19","slug":"study-triads-rampant-in-macao-casinos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/study-triads-rampant-in-macao-casinos\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Triads rampant in Macao casinos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wow, what a shocker — not. A new study by\u00a0T. Wing Lo<\/strong> and Sharon Ingrid Kwok<\/strong> of the City University of Hong Kong<\/strong> for the British Journal of Criminology<\/em>\u00a0reports that casino operators look for junket partners who have ‘dor’ or good standing with China<\/strong>‘s \"ho_stanley\"triads. Lo and Kwok interviewed numerous anonymous sources, ranging from law enforcement personnel to triad members. “The study traced the development of Macau<\/strong>\u2019s junket system from its reported beginnings in ferry ticket scalping hustles in Macau; through to the issuing of \u2018dead\u2019 or \u2018rolling\u2019 chips for VIP gambling in the city\u2019s casinos under the former monopoly of Stanley Ho<\/strong> …\u00a0on to some of the most notorious publicly known names associated with Macau junket activities. The list includes Wan Kuok Koi<\/strong>, also known as \u2018Broken Tooth\u2019 who rose to prominence in the 1990s because of his reputation for violence and his extravagant public image before being jailed for 15 years in 1999,” reported GGR Asia<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And when players are even willing to lose face rather than honor a gambling debt, the junket\/triad relationship ensures that there’s muscle to incentivize debt payment. It’s not just the junketeers who have to have ‘dor’: A triad with a reputation for instability is to be avoided in this elaborate dance. “The management will also judge whether the triads involved can maintain order in the casino, and to ensure that no one will cause trouble for the casino. The casino will never choose triads with a troublesome track record,\u201d says the study. After all, “violence is costly because [triads]\u00a0need to pay followers for fighting and for legal expenses if they get into trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to recent anti-corruption measures by the administration of Chinese President Xi Jinping<\/strong>, junketeers have developed baroque methods of getting around restrictions<\/a> on currency movement. One of the more straightforward of these involves high rollers placing \"Baccarat\"bets to VIP rooms by phone from the relative safety of Mainland China. Of potentially greater worry to casino owners, VIP players have a short shelf life, churning quickly through their bankroll. As one police officer put it,\u00a0\u201cThe problem with the current model is that the whales have a gambling cycle, normally two years. After two years, their financial resources would drain up and the junkets would lose the resourceful [sic<\/em>] customers.”<\/p>\n

Confronted with this documentation, the\u00a0Gaming Inspection &\u00a0Coordination Bureau<\/strong> circled the wagons, stating,\u00a0\u201cUp to now we have not identified any triad being selected by casinos for work related to gaming rooms.\u201d However, with cases of fraud multiplying — one involved the embezzlement of $1.3 billion — the junket industry may become a problem that regulators have trouble ignoring.<\/p>\n

* A Tiverton<\/strong>, Rhode Island<\/strong>, casino is one huge step closer to reality — or at least to \"Tiverton\"making the election ballot — after the state’s House of Representatives passed it by an overwhelming majority<\/a>. The bill has already been voted out of committee in the state Senate and you have to like Twin River Casino’<\/strong>s chances of adding a second facility in Tiverton at this point. The proposed casino looks like a motel but it will at least have the virtue of being unobtrusive.<\/p>\n

* Neil Bluhm<\/strong>‘s casino proposal for Brockton<\/strong>, Massachusetts<\/strong>, barely eked out victory in a recent host-community vote and it appears to have become no more popular since, judging by a divisive town meeting<\/a> held for the benefit of the Massachusetts Gaming \"brockton\"Commission<\/strong>. Opponents trotted out standard-issue arguments, accusing the casino of being a bottom-feeder that will prey on Brockton’s poor. And there’s no shortage of penury to go around: 85% of Brockton students are reported to be living below the poverty line and the city itself is $10 million in the red. Due to setbacks to MGM Resorts International<\/strong> and Wynn Resorts<\/strong>, Bluhm says he could get his 2,100-slot, 290-table casino open first, in 2018. However, the Mashpee Wampanoag<\/strong> are moving forward with their Taunton<\/strong> casino, state approval or no, arguing in court that a Brockton casino would breach Massachusetts law by creating four resort casinos in the Bay State, rather than the statutory three.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wow, what a shocker — not. A new study by\u00a0T. Wing Lo and Sharon Ingrid Kwok of the City University of Hong Kong for the British Journal of Criminology\u00a0reports that casino operators look for junket partners who have ‘dor’ or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[26,189,62,53,112,11,91,25,141,61,32,87,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17836"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17842,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17836\/revisions\/17842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}