The arrest of Zhou Zhuohua, the "new Asian gambling king" nicknamed "Ximi Hua", has attracted continued attention and investors have also been concerned about the impact on gaming stocks.
JPMorgan Chase released the latest report stating that in the above cases, Macau’s revenue from VIP rooms is expected to shrink by 30% to 50% in the next few weeks.
The bank continued that Zhou Zhuohua is the leading gaming intermediary in Macau, whose business accounts for 40% to 45% of the intermediary market, or about 15% of the overall local gambling revenue in 2019, and believes that this matter will have a certain impact on the industry.
Affected by the news and the spread of the variant new crown virus Omicron, casino stocks suffered a heavy blow today.
Galaxy Entertainment (0027), Sands China (1928), Wynn Macau (1128) and SJM (0880) fell 6.06%, 7.61%, 8.84%% and 6.69% respectively in the early stages.
Suncity Group suspended trading this morning
Last Friday (November 26), the Wenzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau issued a case report stating that a cross-border gambling criminal group headed by the suspect Zhou Zhuohua was suspected of committing a crime of opening a casino in China, and the circumstances were serious.
Recently, the Wenzhou People’s Procuratorate approved the arrest of the criminal suspect Zhou Zhuohua in accordance with the law.
After the news came out, the Judicial Police Department of the Macau Special Administrative Region Government also took action and confirmed that Zhou and the other 10 people of a criminal syndicate had been arrested in the early morning of last Saturday (27th).
Eleven people including Zhou confessed to the establishment of overseas gambling platforms.
Zhou Zhuohua was arrested, and the Macau gaming conglomerate Suncity Group (1383) under his chairmanship announced a trading halt this morning.
Sun Entertainment Group (8029), a subsidiary of Sun City Group, dropped by nearly 7% in the early stage, but the turnover was only 16,000 yuan.
Sun Entertainment Group issued an announcement through the Stock Exchange earlier, stating that the actions of the police in Macau were related to the personal affairs of shareholder Zhou Zhuohua, and believed that Wenzhou Public Security Bureau’s investigation of Zhou Zhuohua had no significant impact on the group’s financial status, business or operations.