Jul 9, 2010
Casino card thief fined $1,500
<!-- by line --> By Khushwant Singh
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A CHINESE national working here visited the Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) casino on May 23 and stole someone else's RWS membership card from the baccarat table. Yan Wenbing, 26, a mechanic, then used the points in the card to buy seven packets of cigarettes and a meal of herbal soup from four outlets at the resort. A staff member at the fifth outlet noticed that Yan did not look at all like the picture on the card and the game was up. On Friday, Yan was fined a total of $1,500 for theft and two counts of cheating.
Two other cheating charges and a third for attempted cheating were taken into consideration by the judge for the purposes of sentencing. A district court heard that the card belongs to 26-year-old Teo Wee Sim, a Malaysian studying here. Yan helped himself to Mr Teo's membership card when the croupier was busy returning cards to other players. Yan paid the fine. For theft of the card, Yan could have been fined and/or jailed up to three years. For cheating, he could also be fined and/or jailed up to one year.
