The celebrity sports betting scandal gripping South Korea has produced more fines for its participants. On Wednesday, K-pop star Andy and television host Boom were each ordered to pay KRW 5m (US $4,700) while comedian Yang Sae Hyung was only fined KRW 3m because the scale of his illegal betting was less than the others. The very bad boys were spared prison time after the court determined their transgressions weren’t common practice. Clearly not working off the same crisis management playbook as Toronto mayor Rob Ford, all three celebrities have withdrawn from the public eye while the furor is ongoing.
Stiffer sentences might well be in the cards for three other celebrity bettors caught up in this drama. None of the above celebrities personally wagered more than KRW 44m, but K-pop icon Tony An and television personality Tak Jae-hoon are alleged to have wagered more than KRW 400m and TV host Lee Soo-geun is believed to have wagered over KRW 1b ($954k). The three Korean whales have their first day in Seoul Central District Court on Dec. 6.
K-CHOP IN MACAU
It remains to be seen what fate awaits the South Korean gambler who threatened to go on a killing spree unless Macau officials bought him a plane ticket home. On Tuesday, Macau’s Judiciary Police announced they’d detained a 43-year-old South Korean man named Kang for sending threatening emails to the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO).
Kang arrived in Macau in September and promptly lost all his money at the casinos. Using an internet café, Kang contacted the MGTO for help in getting home. When the MGTO referred Kang to another government bureau, he sent another email threatening to go on a knife-wielding rampage through the city, adding that he’d already purchased the necessary blades to make the streets of Macau run red.
Duly alarmed, the MGTO notified the cops, who managed to swiftly identify and track down the email’s author. Ironically, Kang was detained at the airport as he was about to leave Macau. A police spokesperson told Macau Post Daily that Kang had apparently convinced a friend to wire him money for the plane ticket. No knives were found in Kang’s possession, but he could face up to five years in prison if convicted on a charge of making threats.
SHOULDA STAYED HOME
Kang would have been better advised to stay home and do his wagering online at one of the many online casinos offering services to his country. (He still might lose his bankroll, but at least he wouldn’t be thousands of miles from the consoling beer in his refrigerator.) A few weeks back, authorities in Cambodia’s Siem Reap Province took down an illegal online live dealer casino that reportedly did a lot of business with gamblers in South Korea and Malaysia. Police detained nine South Koreans, four Cambodians and 21 women serving as dealers, but the women were all released after police realized they weren’t the organizers.
Provincial police Maj. Gen. Sorth Dina told the Phnom Penh Post that the bust marked the first time Korean nationals had been arrested for organizing online gambling in the popular tourist region in northwest Cambodia. Siem Reap City police chief Tith Narong said the casino had been set up on the third floor of the Angkor Sydney Club and was taken down after a month-long investigation. Provincial police Lt. Col. Phoeng Chendarith told Cambodia Daily that the authorities have so far been unable to identify the source company behind the password-protected online casino because “our police are poor at IT and [the accused] would not tell us their password.” Imagine that…
