Chinese authorities has issued a stern warning to casino operators a year ago to stop marketing to gamblers, but Crown Resorts Ltd. chooses to look the other way.
Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities have been keeping a close watch on casino operators who have been engaging in attracting high rollers from the mainland to gamble overseas by tweaking their respective marketing strategies.
The police surveillance against Crown was part of a Chinese operation targeting gambling-related activities dubbed as “Duanlian.” The aim was to unshackle personal and financial links of Chinese high rollers from foreign casinos.
A source who spoke to the business news agency on the condition of anonymity revealed that China has given a year for casino operators to comply with their directive.
Despite their warning, Chinese authorities have observed Crown’s senior executives make short business trips to China instead of spending long periods in the country. There was also an alleged attempt on the part of Crown to circumvent the Chinese rules by simply packaging the tour activities as resort instead of Casinos.
As payment for the utter disregard of their warning, Chinese authorities swooped down Crown Resorts and arrested 18 of its staffers, including Crown’s executive general manager of international VIP services Jason O’connor.
Sought for comment, a Crown spokesman in Melbourne declined to comment on any warning given to the company by Chinese authorities.
On the other hand, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying declined at a briefing in Beijing on Tuesday to provide details about the cases against Crown or its staffers and referred questions to Shanghai police.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, meanwhile, assured that the two Australian executives of Crown Resorts are in good health after Chinese authorities rounded them up and detained in jail over the weekend.
The Crown staffers, however, have yet to be charged in court since their arrests.
“They are in good health. Their well-being is looked after,” Bishop told reporters, according to Metro. “It’s a detention centre , somewhat like a prison, so the conditions are adequate but not comfortable at all.”
“They have no complaints about the way they are being treated and we’ve passed on this information to their families,” she added.
