A senior vice-president of Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) was fined $20,000 on Friday for providing misleading information over freebies given to gamblers who renewed their annual entry levies.
Lee Poh Yee, 38, who was senior vice-president of gaming services in RWS, admitted to giving a misleading statement to the Casino Regulatory Authority on July 14, 2011 that there was no campaign by RWS to target a certain group of patrons when issuing complimentary Universal Studios Singapore (USS) tickets, nor a plan to give such tickets when people renewed their annual levies.
Now senior vice-president of corporate finance, Lee is the third and last person in RWS to have been convicted.
Last year, former vice-president of VIP services Albert Lim Tze Chen, 44, was fined a total of $100,000 on three charges while former RWS assistant manager Sim Bee Ling, 31, was fined $20,000 for instructing a team leader to erase with correction fluid all mention of the giving out of USS tickets for annual levy renewals in a briefing book.
Casinos here are not allowed to offer any incentives to promote their annual levies. Singaporeans and permanent residents have to pay a $100, 24-hour entry levy or a $2,000 annual levy to enter a casino here.
A district court heard that in February 2011, Lee and his heads of department within gaming services decided that RWS would give to annual levy holders and VIP members, a pair of complimentary Universal Studio tickets.
He knew then that there was a telemarketing campaign to contact existing members to renew their annual levies.
When he learnt that many Singaporean and permanent resident members did not renew their annual levies, he told his staff in an e-mail that it was "still not good'' and instructed them to use USS and concert tickets to encourage members to renew their annual levies.
CRA received a tip-off about the freebies sometime in May 2011. On being queried, RWS disclosed that 789 VIP members were given 1,837 USS tickets, of which 661 were citizens and permanent residents. Of these 661, 559 renewed their annual levies and 537 or 96 per cent of them received the free tickets on or after their renewals.
Lee went to the CRA office on July 14 that year and gave misleading information.
