High Rollers - High Risk?
Updated 17 Sep 2014, 3:55pmWed 17 Sep 2014, 3:55pm
Australian casinos and the threat posed by organised crime.
Originally Posted by Four Corners
MGM owned a major casino on the Atlantic City strip. It wanted a Macau licence by partnering with Stanley Ho's daughter, Pansy Ho.
This triggered a probity investigation by local regulators to examine whether Stanley Ho would exercise undue influence over the joint venture.
The four-year investigation was painstaking. And it was not the first time that Ho's children had come under scrutiny from casino regulators. Sometimes they were approved and other times not.
SANDY BOUCHER: It's true that, that some of, er, Stanley Ho's children have applied for licences and they've been refused.
LINTON BESSER: Sandy Boucher is a former Royal Hong Kong Police detective, now in the private sector. He has worked on several casino regulator investigations that probe Macau and its underbelly.
SANDY BOUCHER: I think the primary issue that they would have been dealing with is: who is their father? In other words, they would have been seen as fronts in those days, as a, as a way to get around the regulatory issues that Stanley Ho himself clearly had.
LINTON BESSER: In 2010, New Jersey regulators found Pansy Ho's associations with organised crime posed too great a risk. Authorities here ordered MGM to either sever its relationship with Stanley Ho's daughter or to leave New Jersey altogether.
It chose the latter and it promised to divest its interest in this Atlantic City mega-casino.
LINTON BESSER: Late last week, after Pansy Ho had removed herself from day-to-day management of the venture, New Jersey allowed MGM back into Atlantic City.
Back in 2008, the Victorian gambling regulator found Lawrence Ho was not under the ongoing influence of his father. It described its investigation as "rigorous" but, unlike in New Jersey, the details of the Victorian investigation were never made public.
LAWRENCE HO, CO-CHAIR AND CEO, MELCO CROWN ENTERTAINMENT LTD (archive): I think we have a wonderful partner in, you know, Mr James Packer and Crown Limited.
(Footage of James Packer and colleagues officially opening City of Dreams resort, Macau, 2009)
But Mr Joyce said Jetstar HK chairman Pansy Ho, “
one the most credible, biggest people in Hong Kong’’