In recent months, the sports and gaming worlds have been focused on, even riveted by, the story of the illegal bookmakers who had the run of the house at some Strip casinos before federal agents came calling. Given the high stakes and ties to sports celebrity, the breathless headlines are probably to be expected.
Just how big the reach of illegal bookies Wayne Nix, Matt Bowyer, and others turns out to be remains to be determined. For a little perspective, I suggest readers remember the story of Wei Seng “Paul” Phua, the mild-mannered Malaysian ghost in the worldwide sports-gambling machine.
Phua (pronounced “Pwa”) made his own share of headlines in the summer of 2014 when he was arrested on charges of transmitting wagering information and operating an illegal gambling business in Las Vegas in connection with a nine-figure illegal-gambling operation during the World Cup soccer tournament.
It wasn’t his first arrest. His group had been busted the prior year in Macau. What made it different was the fact that Phua and company were headquartered in three exclusive Villas at Caesars Palace. The worldwide handle of Phua’s operation for the 2014 World Cup was estimated at $357 million, according to court documents.
You might say it was the group’s room-service request that tipped off authorities to the idea they might be doing more than enjoying a Las Vegas vacation. Forget ordering extra towels or a continental breakfast.
After unpacking, “Phua and his associates requested that Caesars Palace Hotel and Casino provide them with an unusually large amount of electronic equipment and technical support, which they requested be installed in the villas to support eight Digital Subscriber Line lines and wifi access,” FBI Special Agent Minh Pham wrote in a probable-cause affidavit.
In the affidavit, the agent explained that FBI analysts determined Phua’s group monitored the World Cup action in Brazil, while betting through a computer in the Philippines, all from the comfort of their villas in Vegas. And when he needed to take a quick trip to London, he boarded his $48 million Gulfstream G-550 business jet.
Phua is considered one of the biggest gamblers in the world and law enforcement lists him as a high-ranking member of the 14K Triad criminal organization. It is a label he has vehemently denied, reminding skeptics that he’s a well-respected Malaysian businessman.
His bookmaking operation had been exposed the prior year in Macau, where Phua and his crew were involved in hundreds of millions of dollars in bets before being arrested in a case that made the news, but ended up adjudicated in his favor.
The Las Vegas case was stickier. There was certainly no shortage of evidence, and Phua’s notoriety with law enforcement didn’t help him. But after 11 months of legal wrangling, U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon dismissed the case, ruling the FBI investigation was constitutionally flawed. Gordon earlier determined that evidence seized from the villas used by Phua and his associates was inadmissible due to a tainted search, after FBI agents revealed they had posed as Internet technicians during their surveillance of the group’s villas.
With his jet returned, the ghost of Malaysia flew away free.
In the wake of the dismissal, Phua co-counsel David Chesnoff told a reporter, “Paul Phua stood his ground for himself, his friends, ,family and all of us. Ultimately, he has been vindicated by our constitutional system and the honesty and strength of our federal judiciary.”
The cases against Phua and the ongoing investigation of illegal bookmakers in California and Las Vegas are different in many ways. For one thing, Phua’s team had a genuinely global reach.
Nix, Bowyer, and the poker-room bookies who have scattered in the wake of the ongoing investigation generated many millions and, in Bowyer’s case, employed what can generously be described as unorthodox money-management skills. Bowyer, according to published reports, blew millions at the tables of Resorts World Las Vegas as federal authorities closed in on him.
Nix was so comfortable with his business that he openly solicited new customers inside Las Vegas casinos, according to court documents, with the assistance of casino-marketing personnel. (We have yet to learn the fate of his gracious hosts, who according to authorities actually bet with Nix.)
One thing Phua and at least some of the Strip’s bookies have in common is Chesnoff, the omnipresent Las Vegas attorney who has made a career defending hoodlums and high rollers, mob-linked drug traffickers and violent rap producers, celebrities facing drug charges and pro athletes accused of vehicular homicide.
Given that client list, those alleged illegal gamblers don’t seem quite so notorious, after all.
