Macau’s Court of Final Appeal has ruled that a casino operator is not liable for some HK$43.8 million (US$5.58 million) in damages requested by an individual who deposited funds with a junket operator from 2014 to 2015, given that the funds were deposited for investment purposes and not for gaming.
According to a court ruling shared on Monday, the court found that the deposited funds were “not for gaming, but rather for investment returns and therefore cannot be considered of the sole responsibility of the concessionaire as a casino activity.”
Starting in 2014, an investor was convinced by a junket manager to deposit funds into a VIP room in exchange for free transport, hotel accommodation and meals, and a monthly investment return of 1.2%. From July 2014 to April of 2015, the individual deposited a total of HK$30 million (US$3.82 million) with the junket operator, receiving the 1.2% monthly interest rate return. In October of 2015, the individual ceased receiving the interest payments and in 2016 was prohibited from accessing their account in the VIP room.
This resulted in the plaintiff requesting the return of HK$37.2 million ($4.74 million) from the gaming concessionaire, which the court says it did not respond to. In 2020, the individual took the matter to court, requesting HK$43.8 million (US$5.58 million).
The case shifted through multiple courts, which found that the concessionaire had not had contact with the individual who deposited the funds and that concessionaires’ responsibility did not extend to funds or gaming chips deposited with the junket that were not intended for gaming activity.
Junket activity in Macau, certainly at the scale that it had operated previously, ended with the arrest of Alvin Chau, the head of Macau’s largest junket operator Suncity, in 2021.
