Erstwhile casino junket operator Amax International Holdings has struck a deal to operate a VIP room at an undisclosed casino in Cambodia.

On Tuesday, Amax informed the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it had signed a non-legally binding letter of intent regarding the exclusive operating rights of a VIP room at the unidentified Cambodian gaming venue. The other party is an unidentified Chinese citizen who owns the VIP room in question.

Amax said it has been granted an exclusive right until October 30 to negotiate the precise terms of the deal with the Chinese owner, perform due diligence of the VIP room – which consists of 13 baccarat tables – and get assurances from Cambodian lawyers as to the legality of the business. Assuming all goes as planned, Amax has promised to pay the owner a fixed monthly fee for a period of two years.

Amax says the deal is intended to diversify its income stream and expand its gaming business, which is but a shadow of its former self. Once a major player in Macau’s junket sector, Amax now relies on a fledgling online gambling operation in Vanuatu to generate revenue, and not much revenue at that. The company’s annual report covering the 12 months ending March 31 shows online revenue of just HKD 6.6m (US $843k).

Poland’s lottery monopoly has issued a tender for firms interested in assisting the launch and operation of its new online casino monopoly business.

Lottery and betting operator Totalizator Sportowy recently announced it was seeking help in launching its ‘eKasyno’ online casino, bingo and poker monopoly, which the state-owned operator was granted after legislators approved the amended Polish Gambling Act last December.

Gambling technology suppliers interested in becoming Totalizator Sportowy’s online casino partner are required to submit their bids no later than noon local time on September 26. Those handling the tender will begin examining the bids 15 minutes following this deadline.

Each bid must be accompanied by a deposit of PLN 1m (US $282k). Interested bidders need to be able to demonstrate experience with providing similar online services for at least three companies in the past five years. Bidders will also have to guarantee the site will generate annual turnover of at least €5m.

Professional poker player Dragan Kostic has lost his bid to avoid a lengthy jail sentence and a massive financial penalty for failing to declare his poker winnings to Spain’s tax authorities.

On Monday, Spanish media outlet ABC.es reported that the Provincial Court of Palma had upheld an earlier Criminal Court of Palma judgment that sentenced Kostic to a year-and-a-half behind bars and financial penalties totaling €630k for failing to disclose his winnings from the European Poker Tour Barcelona event in 2011.

Kostic, a 55-year-old Macedonian national who has resided in Spain for the past two decades, placed second in the EPT Barcelona 2011 event, winning a tidy €532k in the process. But Kostic failed to include this windfall in its 2011 tax filing, thereby avoiding paying the €228k the tax authority later insisted it was owed from these winnings. (Making the optics even worse, Kostic reportedly earned a €1,315 tax refund that year.)

Kostic originally pleaded ignorance of his responsibility to declare poker winnings as income, while also suggesting that taxes owed had been deducted at source in other instances in which he’d collected live tournament winnings. Kostic further attempted to assign blame for the omission to the financial professional he’d hired to prepare that year’s tax return.

Macau’s biggest junket operator Suncity Group now planning to punt billions of dollars in Japan casino market as it try to change its image from a middleman lender to a casino operator.

Bloomberg reported that Suncity Group is now actively seeking partners for its planned $10 billion integrated resort in Japan, should they be lucky enough to be awarded with a casino license.

The reason behind its move to diversify from junket to casino operator was the fact that integrated resorts brings stable income return, according to Andrew Lo, executive director of Suncity.

“As a junket operator, we don’t have enough chips to play the game even in Macau,” Lo said, according to the report. “In the future, if we own the integrated resorts, we have golf courses, swimming pools and restaurants. Our clients will stick with us more.”

British online gaming company 888 Holdings posted a US$17 million net loss in the first half of the year on exceptional charges of $50.8 million, including a settlement with the UK Gambling Commission.

In a regulatory filing, 888 reported that the UK Gambling Commission’s record £7.8 million (US$10 million) fine and charges for tax provisions in Germany dealt a heavy blow in the company as it saw a reversal of fortune this year from a profit of $27.8 million last year.

The British gambling watchdog slapped 888 with a hefty fine last week after it was found liable for allowing over 7,000 customers who had chosen to self-exclude from their casino, poker or sports betting platform to access the firm’s bingo platform via a technical failure.

“888 takes its obligations as a responsible operator seriously and remains dedicated to providing players with a responsible as well as enjoyable gaming experience,” the firm said. “During the period 888 announced that it had been informed that the United Kingdom’s Gambling Commission (‘UKGC’) was conducting licence review of its licensed activities. 888 worked cooperatively and closely with the UKGC and reached a resolution to this process which was published on 31 August 2017.”

Nothing shows that you hit the big leagues like a nice relaxing government fine for committing what politicians have decided is a “crime”. The business of avoiding pretend crimes can be humorous and only slightly annoying in the best case. Think those repetitive disclaimers about forward-looking statements CEOs have to make before presenting their company to investors. Or it can burden the entire global economy and lower the standard of living of the entire human race in the worst case.

888 last week joined this coveted group of companies forced to pay money to the UK Gambling Commission. Now the ruling class can look like they care even more about the downtrodden and maybe get another seat in whatever parliament or something.

Alright, so technically the “crime” was not doing enough to stop problem gamblers. Apparently one guy stole £55,000 from his employer so he could keep gambling. In a world run by objective law rather than law made up through political wrangling, everyone is responsible for their own behavior and this is not their direct responsibility. 888 probably does have a vested interest in keeping problematic gambling addicts away from their systems if only to avoid bad press and tarnishing their brand name. Most companies that intend on surviving long term have an interest in keeping PR liabilities out of their hair. There is no need for extra government protection in these cases, which just amounts to government looking for its slice of the loot.

Shell companies with no brand name and no long term plan looking to swindle people for as much as possible as quickly as possible and then pop out of existence like a quantum flux are a problem, but these companies have no brand recognition so anyone who falls for them would have lost their money some other way anyway. You can’t protect people from themselves indefinitely. If they want to be swindled, eventually they will be.

Ousted Universal Entertainment Corp. chairman Kazuo Okada committed three fraudulent acts for his personal gain, the Japan-listed gaming conglomerate reported.

Universal has formally concluded its three-month investigation into the multi-million dollar illegal fund outflows from its Hong Kong-based subsidiary Tiger Resort Asia Ltd (TRA) on Monday, with probers declaring that the Japanese billionaire committed fraud – not just once but thrice.

In a regulatory filing, Universal told the Japan Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation (Jasdaq) that the company will proceed to examine the measures it should take against Okada and Yoshinao Negishi, former director and general manager of Universal’s Administrative Division.

The three-month investigation, according to Universal, has made things clear that Okada. “committed these acts for his own personal benefit, and it can only be said that this is an extreme intermingling of private and public affairs and that there was a lack of a sense of ethics that one should naturally have as a director of a listed company.”