Mobile Phone Casino Scammer Facing Jail Sentence in Singapore

A Taiwanese man is facing up to 7 years in jail after being accused of using his mobile phone to record cards and send the information to an online chat group...

27-year-old Hung Jung-Hao is accused of conspiring with six others to cheat the Marina Bay Sands casino in Singapore. Hung allegedly recorded the cards dealt in a game of 7UP Baccarat and then uploaded them to a chat group.

The chat group, titled in Chinese and translated as: “15/12 Work in Singapore Chat Group (9)”, is believed to have been at the centre of the cheating.

Hung was caught sending the card info to the group between 1.49am and 1.52am on Dec 23rd, but while he was arrested, three of his known accomplices fled, while another three remain unknown.

Hung’s lawyers have argued that he should be released on bail, stating that he may end up spending longer on remand than he would receive as a sentence.

Prosecution lawyers, however, have argued that Hung is a foreigner and the law allows for longer remand in certain cases, with the judge agreeing he poses a “flight risk”.

Under Singapore’s Casino Control Act, a person who uses a device to count or record cards dealt in the course of gaming in the casino can be jailed up to seven years, fined up to S$150,000 (US$110,000), or both.

In 2015, a Czech national was jailed for 22 months after admitting to cheating while playing slot machines in the strictly-regulated nation.

40-year-old Radoslav Skubnik was part of a Russian-based syndicate that targeted specific makes of slot machines and used sophisticated technology to predict big payouts.

The clever piece of kit devised by the Russians recorded play patterns and then decoded and analysed the results. Skubnik had been sent to Macau in a similar role before heading to Singapore where he targeted Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) and Marina Bay Sands casinos.

Along with his accomplices, Russians Vladislav Logachev, 40, and Andrei Egorov, 33, Skubnik used decoded information to target 6 machines, winning $6,402 and $13,352 over two days.

Police recovered winnings totalling $120,000.