Marina Bay Sands casino settles with VIP gambler over $10m debt

Las Vegas Sands’ Singapore casino appears to have resolved its five-year quest to collect a $10m marker from an Australian-Chinese VIP gambler.

This week, the Straits Times reported that lawyers representing the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) integrated resort had filed a notice of discontinuance with the Singapore High Court on June 6 regarding its legal claim against Wang Zhi Cai. The parties reportedly reached an amicable settlement, the details of which remain unknown.

MBS launched legal proceedings against Wang, who was born in China but holds significant assets in Australia, after he ran up a gambling tab of SG$10m (US$7.3m) at the casino’s VIP tables over two sessions in 2013 and 2014.

Wang proved reluctant to honor his markers, based on his claim that the debt was owed to a junket operator, not the casino. Other VIP deadbeats have raised similar defense claims, flying in the face of MBS’ repeated insistences that it doesn’t employ junkets, or ‘international marketing agents’ (IMA), as they’re referred to locally.