Malaysian sentenced to 3 years in jail over card counting scheme at Marina Bay Sands

A Malaysian national was found guilty of conspiring to record cards dealt at Baccarat tables at Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and was sentenced to three years and four months in jail by Singaporean authorities.

The man, identified as Tan Kian Yi, was a member of a five-person group made up of people from Taiwan and Malaysia, and the case sheds light on a global syndicate. Through the use of card-counting techniques, the syndicate made around SGD 433,370 ($323,400) in eight days.

In August of the previous year, Tan, a sales manager, met a Taiwanese couple who were among the other two syndicate members, during a conference in the Philippines. Prior to the fraud, Tan had attended a course to understand how the shuffling machine operated and how to count cards. After the first meeting, the group met again in Manila, where Tan was given an introduction to the card-counting method. This included using a formula to predict the game’s eventual outcome and entering card values into an Excel spreadsheet.

When the syndicate debuted in Singapore in December of that year, Tan was the one who entered the data into the Excel sheet and placed the bets. The trio was arrested because MBS employees knew about their behavior. The prosecution made the case for a severe sentence by stating that the crime “struck at the heart of Singapore’s engine for growing tourism – the MBS casino.” The goal of the sentencing is to deter potential criminals and uphold the integrity of the casino’s activities.

Original story by: Asia Gaming Brief