Macau’s Judiciary Police said on Thursday they had arrested three men from the Chinese mainland for alleged involvement in a “criminal group” engaged in live online broadcast of Cotai “VIP room play”.
It was allegedly targeting people in the mainland lured via Chinese social messenger application WeChat, to make remote wagers on what the police termed “under-the-table” betting activities, or “multipliers”.
The Judiciary Police said in a Thursday briefing the three mainlander suspects – ranging in age from 29 to 35 – were arrested in “a VIP room” of “a Cotai casino”.
One of the detainees was thought to be the ringleader. “At least 10 others” suspected of involvement were still at large, said the Judiciary Police.
The Macau authorities have previously defined “under-the-table” betting, also reported in the media as the “multiplier”, as betting at live-dealer casino gaming tables, where the bet seen on the table, is said actually to represent a bet made privately that can be a multiple many times the ‘official’ one. On that basis, the full 40-percent grosss gaming revenue (GGR) tax levied by Macau would not be paid to the authorities.
The alleged illegal gaming operation involving the suspects had been active since August 2024, the briefing was told. The Judiciary Police initiated investigations in September after receiving a tip-off.
The police have estimated that the ‘under-the-table’ wager amounted to HKD5.36 million (US$688,375), while the ‘official’ or ‘on-the-table’ wager was circa HKD790,000, with most of the remote players being residents of the Chinese mainland.
Evidence seized by the police included cell phones allegedly used by the suspects for capturing VIP live play, as well as “micro-earbuds”, i.e., very small wireless earphones.
The multiplier practice in relation to tax loss to the Macau government, was a factor in the 2022 criminal trial of former Macau junket boss Alvin Chau Cheok Wa, that eventually saw him sentenced to a long prison term. Though in January 2023 he was told he would not have to pay the city’s government compensation for the lost tax.
In April that year, when another former Macau junket boss, Levo Chan Weng Lin, was sentenced for gambling crimes, he was said to have facilitated multiplier gambling.
In October, Macau’s amended “Law to Combat Crimes of Illegal Gambling” came into effect, specifying the multiplier as a form of illegal gaming operation.
The city’s government had outlined in December 2023 the proposed terms of the revised law, saying it had suggested “explicit” inclusion of the multiplier practice as a form of “illegal operation of games of fortune”.
