Australian Casino Company’s Employees Face Charges in China -<br />By JACQUELINE WILLIAMS and SUI-LEE WEEJUNE 13, 2017<br />SYDNEY, Australia — The Chinese authorities have charged employees of an Australian casino company with violating gambling promotion regulations, the company said on Tuesday, shedding potential light on a legal clash<br />that has cast a pall over the gambling industry’s efforts to win Chinese customers.<br />Crown Resorts Limited, a casino company partly owned by the Australian billionaire James Packer, said in a filing with Australia’s stock exchange on Tuesday<br />that the employees had been charged and would be tried by a court in Baoshan, a district in Shanghai.<br />The Chinese authorities detained 18 employees, including three Australian citizens,<br />in October in a crackdown that sent shivers through the casino industry.<br />Gambling is illegal on the Chinese mainland, but Chinese customers have helped drive robust casino growth in Macau, a Chinese city<br />that operates under its own laws, as well as in Australia, Singapore and a number of other destinations in the Asia-Pacific region.<br />Employees still being detained by the police and those released on bail had been charged, Crown said.<br />Her husband, Jeff Sikkema, said in an interview on Tuesday<br />that she had been released on bail, but he said he had not heard about the charges until Crown made its disclosure.<br />“For my wife — who does admin stuff, makes hotel reservations, processes visas — how is that possibly involved with gambling
