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Reuters was reporting late Sunday that the Las Vegas Sands had allowed a man identified by the US Senate as an “organized crime figure” to move US$100k in gambling credit from the Sheldon Adelson managed Sands to one of its Macau-based casinos.
Documentation of this alleged incident emerged in the wake of a lawsuit filed by a former Sands employee who previously claimed prostitution was permitted on the Sands Macau property.
From Rueters:
The cooperation with an alleged crime boss could draw the attention of Nevada gambling regulators, who are charged with stopping casinos from bringing "disrepute" to the state, at a time when Sands is the focus of several government investigations.
Sands, controlled by billionaire and prominent Republican party donor Sheldon Adelson, is under investigation by US and Nevada regulators for payments that raised bribery concerns under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Evidence in a wrongful termination lawsuit by a former Sands China chief executive spurred the probes.
Adelson is one of the biggest donors to the GOP party.
In recent months, authorities in Macau have expressed concerns over recent incidents that include three murders, a hammer-wielding assailant and a series of casino raids that netted over a dozen individuals.
"Number one: the Chinese government will not tolerate it (rising violence). Number two: if you look at the structure of the VIP room operation in Macau, it's a completely different story from 1998," said Davis Fong, a director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macau, referencing the gang warfare that took place during the late 90’s. At that time, Portugal was in control of the gambling empire. Since 1999, China has taken over.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com Business
