The convicted operator of Macau’s ‘name and shame’ website of gambling debtors has lost his appeal of his prison sentence for violating data protection laws.

On Thursday, Portuguese-language media outlet Ponto Final Macau reported that Macau’s Court of First Instance had rejected an appeal by Charlie Choi Kei Ian, who’d been sentenced to six months in prison for failing to remove the personal data of some 500 alleged gambling deadbeats from the ‘Wonderful World’ website.

According to the report, the Court rejected Choi’s appeal on July 12, but the information has only now been made public. Choi (pictured) confirmed to Ponto Final that, after consulting with counsel, he’d determined that there was “no remedy but to accept” the sentence.

Choi had long maintained that, while he was chairman of Wonderful World Group Ltd, neither he nor the company of that name had any connection with the debtor website. But two witnesses at Choi’s trial claimed otherwise, and Choi himself appeared to contradict his denials in contemporary media reports.