Inside Asian Gaming

May 2016 inside asian gaming 43 up a proxy operation covering eight tables there for US$50,000 at the end of 2014. The biggest expense, he says, was two cameras rigged up over each table, which had to be high-quality to guarantee against outage. After that there was the website, developed in-house. Players outside the country simply logged in with a username and password, telephoned their proxy in the casino to ask the number of the table he was sitting at, accessed the video streams for that table and started issuing instructions. Within three months, McCamley says, the proxy operation was supplying 38% of Ho Tram’s main gaming floor revenue. Players were recruited via Ho Tram’s international marketing department, which worked with junket operators. About 90% of the time they sent their own proxy, McCamley says, although at times the casino could supply a person to bet for them. What’s at the other end of the line? An industry consultant familiar with Hong Kong says he knows a gentlemen’s club in the city where TV screens, in karaoke rooms with hostesses serving drinks, can switch channel to access proxy betting at a Manila casino. The owner of the club, the consultant says, has several similar operations running in mainland China. Proxy betting’s supporters insist it doesn’t violate Chinese law. They say that while a proxy sitting in a Poipet or Manila casino is buying chips and placing bets, the person issuing instructions to him via telephone from China is doing neither. No gambling is taking place in China, in other words, and there are no financial dealings between the casino and the person inside China. The defenders of proxy claim this Features Shaun McCamley set up and ran a highly profitable proxy gambling operation at Vietnam’s Ho Tram Casino Resort. “In Cambodia now there are thousands and thousands of people working to deliver proxy betting via telephone and the internet to mainland China. In Sihanoukville alone I think there’s 12 or 13 new casinos just set up for this purpose.”