Former Crown Exec Loses Bid for $20M Interest on ‘Largest, Fastest’ Ever Casino Losses

A former Crown Resorts executive has lost her bid to collect years of interest on a Chinese billionaire’s gambling debt that has been described as the “largest and fastest” loss ever recorded at an Australian casino.  

Over the course of a few days in late February 2015, Chinese businessman Huang Youlong lost AU$60 million (US$41.7 million) at Crown Perth’s VIP baccarat tables, according to court documents.

Crown’s vice president of marketing Chua Eh Fong claimed in a civil lawsuit that she had personally entered into oral credit agreements with Huang that would allow her to charge him 24% annual interest after he failed to repay the marker.

Refused Credit

Huang – ex-husband of Chinese actress Zhao Wei and a businessman once linked to Alibaba founder Jack Ma – was refused direct gaming credit by Crown because of outstanding debts elsewhere, according to court documents.

Chua instead arranged for now-defunct junket operator Suncity to bankroll his gambling through its own credit facilities. Investors associated with the junket, including members of Chua’s family, had deposited funds that guaranteed the credit.

Huang lost an initial AU$40 million in gaming chips within two days before borrowing another AU$20 million in an unsuccessful attempt to recover his losses.

In a June 30 judgment, Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance rejected Chua’s claim, ruling the money was owed to now-defunct Macau junket Suncity, not to her personally.

Deputy High Court Judge Alan Kwong found the credit had been provided by Suncity, making the junket, not Chua, the legal creditor. Kwong found no evidence that the oral credit agreements described by Chua in her complaint ever existed.

He described her assertions as “afterthoughts” that failed to chime with “basic commercial common sense and ordinary logic.”

Huang eventually repaid the full debt directly to Suncity between February 2016 and November 2019, according to legal filings.

Window into Junket Economy

The case offers a glimpse into the mechanics of the VIP junket system that once underpinned Australia’s casino industry before Crown severed ties with junket operators amid sweeping regulatory investigations.

Rather than extending credit directly to high-risk gamblers, Crown could rely on junket operators such as Suncity to assume the financial risk.

Those relationships later became the focus of royal commission-style inquiries in New South Wales, Victoria, and Western Australia, which found Crown unsuitable to hold casino licenses because of failures surrounding money laundering controls, junket partnerships and corporate governance.

Suncity, once the largest junket operator in Macau, collapsed after its CEO, Alvin Chau, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on 162 charges of fraud, illegal gambling, and criminal association in January 2023.