Alarm Bells Over Organized Crime in Casino Gambling

US sounds alarm bells over Macau triads
By Peter Brieger (AFP)

HONG KONG — US regulators are sounding alarm bells over Macau's triads but analysts say casinos around the world have always attracted organised crime, not just in the Asian gambling hub.

"It's part of the whole industry -- it always has been," said the officer, who asked not to be identified. "And it's not just in Macau. Look at Las Vegas."

The New Jersey report told Las Vegas-based MGM Mirage to cut its business ties with Ho's daughter Pansy -- after deeming her "unsuitable" because of her business relationship with her father -- or risk losing its state gaming licence.

MGM Mirage rejected the report's findings and said it would instead sell a 50 percent stake in an Atlantic City casino-resort and quit New Jersey so it could keep its casino-hotel in Macau -- which has leapfrogged Las Vegas in gaming revenue.

Now, the casino operator appears headed for another possible confrontation with gaming regulators in the US states of Illinois, Michigan and Mississippi after they said they would also examine MGM Mirage's Macau business partner.

US operator Las Vegas Sands recently dismissed a news report that said a triad member who allegedly plotted to murder a Macau casino dealer had at one stage run a high-roller gaming room at Sands Macau.

Last week, a former VIP gambling room manager at Ho's flagship Casino Lisboa pleaded guilty to laundering about 50 million US dollars from an illegal horse-race betting operation through Hong Kong bank accounts, local media reported.