Man Jumps from Casino Ship to Escape Loan Sharks
Gambling on loan-shark borrowed money is all enjoyable and games and soon you lose every one of that money and are forced to remove to your skivvies and jump from your 3rd floor cabin window aboard the casino ship that was the cause of your short-lived fun and subsequent woes, into the frigid waters of Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor below.
A Chinese nationwide surnamed Lu discovered that out the difficult way last week, in accordance with the china newspaper Ming Pao. He presumably borrowed HK$120,000 (more or less US$15,460) from loan sharks and embarked on a night of gambling aboard the casino ship, which skirts (or rather sails) around Hong Kong’s strict gambling laws by cruising out into international waters, a ever more popular ploy the world over.
The ship had been somewhere near the Eastern Harbor Crossing Tunnel between Lei Yue Mun and Kwun Tong once the man made his escape attempt (the loan sharks had been presumably up to speed with him) after burning through the lent money. He covered his documents and what little money he had left in plastic, stripped down, donned a life coat, and jumped from the screen of his cabin.
Rather than being free to swim to safety and make his wet way home however, he had been picked up by another ship, which immediately brought him, soaking and sullen, to a police that is nearby, and then after that to the hospital for a check-up.
Although the man was released by authorities and has not been charged with any crime, the authorities are surely minimal of his worries at the moment, over it; people who probably weren’t particularly impressed by his decision to go for a late night swim as he still has a formidable gambling debt hanging over his head, and likely some very angry people looking for him.
Chinese Laundry Through the Slots: Money Laundering Alleged for Med Tech Firm
You are thought by there is a gambling issue? How about $116,000 per on a slots habit month? That’s just how much Bi Xiaodong, wife of China Medical Technologies (CMT) CEO Wu Xiaodong, is rumored to have pumped into the high roller slot machines at Las Vegas’ upscale Wynn and Bellagio casinos between 2005 and 2010, playing with a whopping allowance from the man from whom she was then separated.
Washed Out
Surprisingly, you can find those who throw money around at that crazy level in Vegas, so wagering $5K a hand at slots per se most likely would not have raised too many eyebrows. Just What did catch the interest of investigators, however, was the way that Mrs. Xiaodong received the sums that are enormous manage to manage to play at that level, because one source suggests that she could have passed as much as $62 million through the Bellagio slots alone between 2008 and 2012.
The Missus claims she got her gambling money allowance from child care and for living expenses (begging the relevant question of whether her kids had shoes or milk to drink); and maintains she separated from Wu in 2001 and had absolutely nothing to do with his business CMT since before its IPO in 2005 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Money Problems
It ended up being last summer whenever CMT had to close straight down, after creditors moved in to gather missing interest payments from the company, forcing them into liquidation. Those bondholders included GLG Partners, a London firm that manages $26.4 billion in assets; GLG is now suing Wu Xiaodong in a civil suit in Ca, alleging that Xiaodong stripped assets from CMT and then fed them surreptitiously to his wife, who in turn ran them through the fancy Strip slot machines.
How It Works
Here’s the shell game: the casino allows players cash down from lengthy durations of slot play with a credit note for the remainder money deposited. The ball player can then just take that note to a casino cashier, get a check for the amount that is remaining deposit said check in their bank account, and declare it as ‘gambling winnings’ on their taxation statements ( which are then cancelled down by the same quantity in ‘gambling losses,’ of course.)
Reports say that Bi Xiaodong declared close to $17 million on her returns in victories between 2009 and 2011, with the ancillary loss to cancel the wins out. But the questions about where the funds emanated from were what led detectives to look into the cash that is CMT possibility, and the chance for money laundering of CMT’s massive IPO funds.
Money Speaks
Now CMT’s liquidators are attempting to monitor some $670 million in lacking cash which was raised throughout the company’s 2005 IPO. Also under investigation are the company’s former finance director Takyung Tsang and their wife.
Is actually a full case of dirty laundry.
Macau Gaming Revenues Through the Roof for March
The economy may be crawling back on its belly everywhere else, however in Macau, cash appears to be falling out in clumps of the sky, at the very least for its casino that is lucrative industry.
A J.P. Morgan analyst estimates that March gross Macau video gaming revenues for the world’s most successful gambling location ever will top away at $3.67 billion, a new month-to-month record even for Macau. Aided by the last monthly tallies not in yet, it’s predicted that last intakes could end up at a 25 % enhance over the same time in 2012, and it looks like that is as a result of a expansion of Asian whales, a sector that appears to possess exploded having a 15 to 20 percent development rate this year.
On the Other Side regarding the Coin
Talk about trickle-down economics: seems nearly all of Macau’s casino industry workers are also having a good year so far. In a 2013 survey referred to as Macau Employee self-esteem and Satisfaction Index, 1,026 employees responded about their various levels of job satisfaction, as well as their job that is overall confidence. The movement downward was subtle enough to be able to categorize their feelings as ‘stable’ in the mysterious world of index rankers although slightly down from last year’s Index.
Casinos Employ Many
With very nearly a third associated with the survey respondents involved in Macau’s booming casino industry, it appears that non-casino employees have ever-so-slightly higher job satisfaction than their casino worker counterparts, with croupiers posting the lowest satisfaction away from the entire gaming employee group. As it pertains to income, however, croupiers rake within the satisfaction that is highest of any of workers, gaming and non-gaming alike. Could all those incredibly wealthy Asian whales be both impossibly demanding and tippers that are also great they winnings? Sure appears like it.
The ahead year
Now it just remains become seen in the event that rest of 2013 is because lucrative as March looks want it will be when all the true numbers are totally tallied.
We know one group especially whom is wishing for continued wealth to come strike the tables in Macau: the croupiers.
Record-Breaking Poker Jackpot Relaunched
BetVictor Poker recently revamped and relaunched its massive Bad Beat Poker Jackpot with a prize that is record-breaking of €921,603 (those Euros translate to $1,193,291) https://shmoop.pro/1984-by-george-orwell-part-one-summary/.
‘we are delighted in order to introduce the Bad that is all-new Beat by having an industry record-breaking prize pool of over €920,000,’ announced Andy Horne, head of poker at BetVictor.
Better to Win, More Payouts
Suspended earlier this month to ensure that BetVictor could produce a few positive changes to the structure for its players, the jackpot can now be won more easily, with more benefiting from the payout too.
‘Will it achieve €1 million? Who knows.? The modifications suggest it will often be won more and by more people now,’ explained Horne. ‘The current jackpot will discover over €90,000 paid out to opted-in players playing at the same stakes as the winner, so even though you’re maybe not during the table where it strikes, you are able to share into the good fortune, and that is no bad beat.’
Opt In for Players
Players looking to participate in the Bad Beat Jackpot now require to use the ‘opt-in’ option that you can get on all money tables above €0.10/€0.20, of which point they are going to contribute €0.02 to your increasing jackpot each hand they perform a little price to fund the opportunity to win a chunk of a large prize.
In order to boost the chances of winning, the new hand that is qualifying been paid down from four-of-a-kind eights, to four-of-a-kind deuces.
When the lucky winner manages to sweep up the jackpot, 10 % regarding the award pool are distributed to players who’ve opted in during the stake degree at which the jackpot is hit.
It’s All Your Own
In addition, BetVictor, which had been created in 1946 and became one of the world’s leading independent bookmaking and gaming groups, has announced that there is no administration fees involved, so that the complete jackpot is distributed to your players involved.
With increased opportunities of winning, and a record-breaking prize pool of almost one million euros just waiting to burst, BetVictor is certainly going to have its flooding gates battered down by those looking to play on low-stakes tables because of the potential for a decent payout.
