Macau junket investor Iao Kun Group Holding Company (IKG) has struck a deal with Australian casino operator Crown Resorts.

The deal is being done via an intermediary; an IKG officer named Lou Kan Kuong. Earlier this week, IKG inked a memorandum of understanding in which officer Lou acts as a junket operator at Crown’s Perth and Melbourne properties while IKG gets 100% of his profits. IKG called the purchase price “nominal” and said it hopes to conclude the deal by mid-May.

The degree of separation seems silly, since IKG and Crown aren’t strangers. IKG funnels VIPs to City of Dreams, the Macau casino operated by Crown’s joint venture Melco Crown Entertainment. But Australia can be very picky about who does what with Crown, so…

IKG currently has stakes in five VIP gaming rooms spread across four different Macau casino operators but Macau’s VIP market is in the dumps, IKG chairman Man Pou Lam was therefore justifiably giddy over the firm’s “first step toward expanding our operations and presence internationally and beginning to diversify our sources of revenue.”