Suncity Group recently came under fire from Chinese media after there were accusations made against the Macau junket operator of encouraging illegal online gambling at different locations. While the company denied the allegations, the negative media coverage caused a lot of problems for the company and saw its share prices drop.
Suncity CEO Alvin Chau recently held a press conference at the Mandarin Oriental Macau and tried to rectify some of the reputation damage that the company had incurred. Chau promised that Macau law will be completely followed in all of its operations, even if its operations were based in other countries. Suncity’s operations cover 18 VIP clubs in Macau alone. The company also has 14 additional clubs all across Asia and Australia.
Suncity’s troubles started when China’s state-owned news agency Xinhua and its associate, the China Economic Information Daily, accused the Suncity Group of signing up players for online gambling accounts while also allowing proxy betting services. Both of these are prohibited under Macau and Chinese law.
Chau once again denied these accusations during the press conference further echoing the company’s ongoing denials. The CEO also promised that Suncity will not be offering any proxy betting or online gambling at any of their locations even if it is permitted in the country where they have operations.
In a statement,
For any products that are legally allowed to operate in other countries and regions, the company will not adopt them if the laws of Macau do not allow it and will strictly adhere to the law of Macau. The company has not operated the so-called online gaming platform, which is promoting gaming and conducting monetary settlement in Mainland China without physical gambling chips.
Chau also pointed out that Suncity was observant of all Chinese laws and made all their data and income public every month. He also pointed out that the company’s profits did not exceed the revenue of the China Lottery and was not being disruptive of the financial order in China. There were also reports that Beijing had put him under surveillance.
Chau stated he was not under investigation by Chinese authorities despite the allegations. He also said that even with these false accusations made against the company, Suncity would not be pursuing any legal action against Economic Information Daily or any other media source that reported on the story.
Chau ended with an apology to the government of Macau for any inconvenience this caused and for any negative impact it had on the Macau gambling industry. He hopes that his statement would help ease the concerns of both the mainland Chinese and Macau governments.
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