Strengthening the Commonwealth Casino Commission\u2019s regulatory functions will help prevent China from including the CNMI in its \u201cblacklist\u201d of cross-border gambling tourism destinations, according to CCC executive director Andrew Yeom.<\/p>\n
Speaking during a House Committee on Gaming hearing last week, Yeom said he has investigated and researched the \u201cblacklist issue\u201d and has learned that a way to avoid having the CNMI included in China\u2019s \u201cblacklist\u201d is to have CCC monitor junket operators, regulate cross-border money transfers, among other things.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will strengthen the anti-money laundering initiative to make sure that we let the world know that we\u2019re here to clear up all the regulations in terms of the Anti-Money Laundering concerns,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Yeom talked about the \u201cblacklist\u201d issue in response to a question from committee chair Rep. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan), who cited multiple news sources that China is looking at blacklisting several countries because of corruption or some other issues. He said the news sources disclosed that more countries will be named later in the blacklist.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you concerned about how this affects the future prospect of gaming casino here in the Commonwealth?\u201d Propst asked.<\/p>\n
In response, Yeom said that China is primarily worried about money laundering and cross-border money transfers. <\/p>\n
With the CNMI or CCC sending a strong message about being transparent and strong in its regulatory functions, Yeom believes this will be helpful to the casino industry. \u201cAnd this is something that I have consulted with other experts in the world. That should help us to continue the casino operation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Yeom said Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC still has to improve its business plan. <\/p>\n
Separately, Tao Xing, IPI senior vice president of Marketing and Public Affairs, said at the same hearing that the China Travel Bureau issued last Aug. 26 a sort of announcement about a plan to publish a gaming destination blacklist. \u201cBut so far the list hasn\u2019t been published. We have been monitoring that closely,\u201d Tao said.<\/p>\n
From a business perspective, Tao said IPI needs to enhance its compliance in making sure that they\u2019re rigorously following the rules against money laundering. \u201c[We have to] make sure we have education and properly reinforce our education department. Make sure we have the full training,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Second, Tao said, they have to shift their business model from VIP market to mass market to premium mass so that they can accommodate the change. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe last point I just want to make is that, given all the destinations, if you look at Australia, if you look at Singapore, our size is relatively small,\u201d said Tao, adding that they are hoping that this will not trigger some significant attention from the Chinese government. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Strengthening the Commonwealth Casino Commission\u2019s regulatory functions will help prevent China from including the CNMI…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":337918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[169,257],"class_list":["post-337903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-china","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}