Singapore's casino authority fines RWS S$600,000

KUALA LUMPUR: Singapore's Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA) imposed a financial penalty of S$600,000 (RM1.5mil)on Resorts World Sentosa Pte. Ltd. (RWS) for partially reimbursing the annual entry levy paid by some local casino patrons.
According to CRA on Wednesday, this was is the highest single financial penalty imposed to-date by the authority.
The
CRA had launched investigations into a possible breach of the Casino
Control Act (CCA) when it was tipped off by some members of the public
they received complimentary Universal Studios Singapore (USS) tickets
when they renewed their annual entry levies.
"Our investigations
revealed that between Feb 1, 2011 and May 31, 2011, RWS staff members
carried out a marketing programme which gave incentives such as USS
tickets, concert tickets and hotel accommodation to locals when they
purchased new annual entry levies or renewed their annual entry levies.
"About 3,400 local casino patrons were partially reimbursed the cost of the annual entry levy through these means," it said.
CRA
said although a handful of RWS' staff members handled the marketing
programme, it held RWS responsible for its employees' actions.
RWS
had also failed to submit details of this marketing programme to CRA,
in contravention of CRA's reporting requirements. This breach has been
taken into consideration by CRA.
CRA also said during the probe,
it discovered that certain documents submitted by RWS staff members to
CRA could have been forged, and that false or misleading information
could have been provided to CRA. CRA had therefore referred these cases
to the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) for investigation into
possible criminal offences.
It added it was investigating the culpability of the employees involved.