Casino Singapore Rules
“Go big or go home” says the gambler seated beside you at the blackjack table. Everyone knows the odds in a casino are against the player, so you’re both probably trying different tricks to win.
Singapore is considering tighter regulations at its casinos in an effort to prevent money laundering and financing for terrorism, according to the Casino Regulatory Authority. Singapore considers tightening casino rules for customers to curb money laundering, terror financing The government agreed last year to extend licenses to operate casinos held by Genting Singapore.
Some, like counting cards in your mind, are legal. However, most of the other ways you can think of are probably against the law.
The Casino Control Act (CCA) contains most of the casino-related offences you could get fined or jailed for. You may also be charged under other laws such as the Penal Code or the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (CDSCA).
What People have Gotten Caught for
8 not-so-lucky ways gamblers have tried to win more at casinos but got themselves arrested, fined or jailed instead are:
1. Sneaking in bets after the dealer reveals the result (also known as past-posting)
In July 2015, a 23-year old man tried to bet $500 after the dealer revealed the winning result of a Sic-Bo game at the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) Casino. He stood to win $25,000 if he was not caught.
However, the dealer caught the man and alerted the pit manager. The CCTV also recorded the past-posting.
He was sentenced to 4 weeks’ jail for cheating at play under the CCA.
2. Swapping cards
4 Turkish tourists won $6,075 while playing Three Card Poker in August 2015 by tricking the dealer at the Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) Casino.
One tourist distracted the dealer and another blocked the other patrons’ view so the remaining 2 conspirators could exchange cards under the table.
The dealer did not discover what they were doing. However, the RWS surveillance team picked up on their tricks on CCTV. The tourists were sentenced to between 12 weeks’ and 6 months’ jail for cheating at play.
3. Taking advantage of a system error to obtain more free credits
3 MBS loyalty programme members took advantage of a system glitch to obtain free play credits, which they used to win about $875,133 from electronic roulette machines.
One of them was redeeming her loyalty Sands Bonus Dollars for free play credits when she discovered the glitch. Her redemptions were not recorded because of the glitch and she repeatedly used the glitch to obtain more free play credits.
Instead of informing MBS, she told the other 2 loyalty programme members how to do the same. Together, they obtained $1.029 million worth of free credits from the glitch. They either kept their winnings, transferred their winnings to others or converted them into gaming chips.
Their exploits were later discovered by MBS. They were charged under the CDSCA and sentenced to between 12 to 26 months’ jail. They also agreed to return the $875,133 to MBS.
4. Stealing a playing card machine to photograph the cards’ sequence
In May 2013, 13 Thai nationals stole a baccarat playing card machine from MBS. They crowded around the cabinet holding the card machines and brought it to their hotel room, where they laid out and photographed the cards in sequence. They then replaced the cards in sequence and put the playing card machine back in the cabinet.
The next day, they played baccarat at the same table as the stolen card machine and won about $1.372 million in 3 hours. Casino staff caught on their scheme after the Thai nationals’ actions were recorded on CCTV. They were sentenced to between 12.75 months and 17.25 months jail under the CCA.
5. Making under-the-table deals with the dealer to see the last card in the deck
A Singaporean befriended 3 RWS croupiers and colluded with them to cheat RWS of $12,915 between May and July 2015. While playing Three Card Poker, the dealers flashed the last card in the deck to the gambler in exchange for 20% of his winnings.
The scheme was exposed by CCTV footage which showed the 3 dealers showing the last card in the deck to the gambler.
The gambler was jailed for 12 months. 2 of the dealers were sentenced to 4 and 8 months’ jail. The last dealer is on the run.
6. Making under-the-table deals with the dealer to get paid extra chips
2 Chinese students were jailed for 8 and 15 weeks respectively under the CCA for making under-the-table deals with an MBS baccarat dealer between April and May 2016.
The dealer would either overpay their winning bets or not take in the losing bets. At times, the dealer even paid out on losing bets. The dealer would also hand the students extra chips when they were going to convert the chips to cash.
Their scheme obtained them about $19,700. After the chips were converted to cash, they would meet in the MBS hotel toilets to split the money. The dealer was said to be the mastermind and jailed for 8 months and 12 weeks under the Penal Code and the CCA. The 3 of them also paid $20,275 back to MBS.
7. Convincing other players at the table they have lost
In December 2015, 4 men and 2 women from China were charged with cheating at play under the CCA. What they did was to convince other players at the MBS and RWS baccarat tables that these players had lost their bets. They then pocketed their victims’ chips.
They reportedly cheated victims of about $700 worth of chips. The 6 suspects were also believed to have cheated other casino patrons by pretending to help them place bets.
8. Using smartphones to record jackpot machines’ play patterns
A Czech national and 2 Russians won $108,995 from the jackpot machines (also known as slot machines) at MBS and RWS over 3 days in May 2016 by using their smartphones to film the jackpot machines’ play patterns.
They later uploaded the recordings to a server to predict the jackpot machines’ mass payouts. The predictions were sent back to the players’ smartphones to alert them of the mass payouts.
They were part of a Russian syndicate which paid players 10% of the winnings. All 3 were charged with cheating at play under the CCA. The Czech national was jailed for 22 months. The 2 Russians were sentenced to 45 and 30 months’ jail respectively.
The 45-month jail sentence was later reduced on appeal to 38 months after the courts introduced and applied new sentencing guidelines for the offence of cheating at play.
Other Casino Offences
Other illegal behaviour under the CCA include:
- Putting fake coins into a jackpot or slot machine
- Making fake chips or chip purchase vouchers
- Using any device to count or record the cards dealt
- Carrying, selling, or buying fake chips to use as real chips (and the use of such fake chips)
- Carrying or using tampered cards or dice
- Carrying or using anything which could interfere with the casino’s games
- Tricking the dealer to get more money
- Pretending to be casino staff
While the UK Supreme Court has held in a lawsuit against Genting Casinos that edge-sorting by a gambler himself will be considered cheating, it remains to be seen whether Singapore will take the same approach.
Casino Control Act Punishments
Depending on which CCA offence you have been suspected of committing, you can be arrested without a warrant and jailed for up to 7 years, fined up to $150,000, or both.
At the very least, the CCA empowers Singapore casinos to detain you until the police arrives if they suspect you cheated. We don’t imagine that’s an enjoyable way to spend a free day.
Singapore is considering tighter regulations at its casinos in an effort to prevent money laundering and financing for terrorism, the Singaporean Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA) said.
The regulator has already asked casino operators to lower the threshold for cash transactions that are subject to due diligence to S$5,000 (US$3,592), half the current legislated level, a spokesperson said in an e-mailed response to Bloomberg.
Singapore’s formal threshold is much higher than the global standard of US$3,000 set by the anti-money-laundering watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the CRA said.
“The [Singaporean] Ministry of Home Affairs and CRA are reviewing the legislative thresholds in the Casino Control Act with a view to lowering these thresholds further to fully comply with the FATF standards,” the CRA said.
Singapore’s casino industry is under the spotlight after Bloomberg reported last week that the US Department of Justice is investigating Marina Bay Sands Pte, the unit of billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp, over whether money laundering controls were breached in the way it handled the accounts of gamblers.
Marina Bay Sands also faces a probe in Singapore by the CRA into its money transfer policies.
Claims about these transfers surfaced in a lawsuit filed last year by Wang Xi, who sued Marina Bay Sands seeking to recover S$9.1 million, which he said was sent to other casino patrons in 2015 without his approval.
The Singapore Police Force is also investigating Wang’s complaint, Bloomberg News reported last month.
In an e-mailed response about the probes, the Singaporean casino said that it takes any such allegations seriously.
The regulator said that it is “committed to ensuring that the casinos in Singapore, including Marina Bay Sands, remain free from criminal influence or exploitation, and takes a serious view of any allegations of unauthorized money transfers.”
The CRA outlined the changes in due diligence thresholds in response to Bloomberg’s request for comment on the FATF report, which said last year that the city-state had inadequate customer due diligence requirements for entities such as casinos and real-estate agents.
It said that “moderate shortcomings are still affecting” the two sectors, without citing any companies.
The FATF report published in November last year is the third follow-up to the 2016 mutual evaluation report on Singapore.
Casino Singapore Rules 2020
Last year, the Singaporean government agreed to extend licenses to operate casinos held by Genting Singapore Ltd and Las Vegas Sands Corp to 2030, in exchange for pledges to invest a combined S$9 billion in tourism projects. The casinos remain closed amid the pandemic.