Levo Chan Weng Lin, the boss of the now defunct junket operator Tak Chun Group, said on Monday (12 December) that he and his firm had never got involved in so-called ‘multiplier’ or ‘under-the-table’ betting activities in any of Macau’s casinos.
Chan made the above statement during the resumption of his trial at Macau’s Court of First Instance on Monday. This was the first time that the former junket boss asked to speak during his trial on illegal gaming, criminal association, fraud, and money laundering.
One of the charges laid against Tak Chun is multiplier betting, an illicit activity where the bet denominated at the casino gaming table is said actually to represent a bet made privately that can be a multiple many times the ‘official’ one. It is used as a way to evade the 39-percent tax rate on casino gaming revenues in Macau, and it is also known as ‘under-the-table’ betting.
According to the prosecution, Tak Chun had benefited from illicit profits from multiplier bets amounting to at least HK$1.5 billion over nearly six years.
But Levo Chan denied the allegation, adding that he had never seen the documents which were said to be Tak Chun’s internal training manuals related to multiplier betting and were presented by the prosecution during the first session of the trial.
“I am not aware of under-the-table betting in Tak Chun. I also want to emphasise that the company and I had not given any instructions to employees about under-the-table betting,” he said in court.
He added that Tak Chun had never provided telephone-assisted betting service in Macau and this service was only offered by Tak Chun’s subsidiary in the Philippines.
Nevertheless Chan conceded that multiplier betting was commonplace in Macau’s casinos, noting that some junket agents or representatives would engage in under-the-table betting with gamblers privately.
