Greek Mythology Casino halts business for “renovation”

Greek Mythology Casino has suspended its business since last Thursday for “internal renovation”, according to a notice posted outside the casino. However, it still remains unknown when the operation will be resumed. The casino, located inside the Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel (formerly known as New Century Hotel) in Taipa, is operated by Greek Mythology Entertainment Group under the gaming licence of Sociedade de Jogos de Macau S.A. (SJM) According to the notice, clients can register and exchange their Greek Mythology chips at SJM’s Grand Lisboa Casino during the closure period. But the casino did not say in the announcement how long the renovation works will take. Greek Mythology Casino is founded by Ng Man-sun, who is the chairman and CEO of Hong Kong-listed junket investor Amax International Holdings Ltd that owns 24.8 per cent of equity interest in Greek Mythology Entertainment, according to the company’s latest interim report issued in December last year. A spokesperson of Amax confirmed to Business Daily yesterday that ‘the Greek Mythology is currently closed for renovation purpose,’ adding the company will announce if there are any updates on the progress. Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of SJM Holdings Ltd, Ambrose So Shu Fai, also confirmed that the temporary closure is just for renovation, assuring that the casino will be reopened. He told TDM yesterday that the shareholders of the casino would like to re-open the casino property for business as soon as possible as they want to continue making money. In addition, the SJM chief executive told Hong Kong Chinese-language newspaper Economic Journal that Greek Mythology’s halt of business would not bring any impact to SJM’s own business, due to the casino’s revenues only accounting for very small proportion among other satellite casinos of the gaming concession holder. In addition, Mr. So indicated that the satellite casinos did not return any gaming tables to SJM following the business suspension, despite it had returned some 40 gaming tables to SJM in 2012. Disputes In fact, the Beijing Imperial Palace Hotel has been involved in labour disputes with its workers from October last year. In that month, the city’s Labour Affairs Bureau (DSAL) said it had received complaints from 281 employees working for hotel property for claiming unpaid salaries. According to DSAL, as at yesterday, the Bureau had completed investigating 209 cases of owed-pay and other claims filed by employees working for the hotel, as well as some other 33 cases filed by workers from Greek Mythology. Indicating such cases did not involve any gaming-table employees, the labour department said it had passed the cases to the city’s Judiciary Police (PJ). Nevertheless, the Bureau did not comment whether the business suspension of Greek Mythology is related to these labour disputes. Enquiring the Gaming Inspection and Co-ordination Bureau (DICJ) on the same question yesterday, Business Daily had not received any reply from the gaming regulator before this story went to press. Meanwhile, Amax has been claiming in its filings with Hong Kong Stock Exchange that its relationship with Greek Mythology Entertainment ‘began to deteriorate in 2012,’ saying that the casino operator has refused to provide the company with its valid financial information to Amax since then. In 2012, Mr. Ng had a dispute with his former girlfriend Chen Mei Hua over the ownership of the then-New Century Hotel and the Greek Mythology Casino. Meanwhile, the following year, the city’s Court of First Instance ordered the seizure of hotel in lieu of an undisclosed debt owed to Hoi Cheng Nga, the head of Energy Travel Agency Ltd. Mr. Ng’s investing company, however, said at that time that the operation of the casino would not be affected by the seizure as it is only a tenant of the hotel.