Profile: the fall of Alvin Chau, Macau’s junket king

Alvin Chau made a fortune catering for Chinese gamblers as the authorities turned a blind eye. Now he’s on trial for illegal cross-border gambling, fraud and money laundering.

Alvin Chau
(Image credit: © Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Around a decade ago, when the tiny former Portuguese territory of Macau grabbed the global casino crown from Las Vegas, it boasted revenues seven times that of the US gambling capital.

Arguably, no one did more to advance this gold rush than “junket king” Alvin Chau, whose company Suncity cornered the market in shepherding wealthy Chinese “whales” from the mainland – where gambling remains illegal – to Macau’s baccarat tables where “$1m could be wagered in a single hand”, says Nikkei Asia. Hosting VIP rooms, and making travel and credit arrangements for these high-rollers, made Chau, 48, a billionaire.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.