SINGAPORE : Once the second biggest casino gambler in the world, he is serving 42 years in jail for cheating banks of $117.1 million to feed his habit.
Chia Teck Leng, now aged 45, is against having a casino in Singapore but says if there is to be one, Singapore needs to at least tame it.
He wrote a paper "Taming the Casino Dragon" while in prison to 'share his experience' and 'lessons learnt'.
The Home Affairs Ministry is releasing it now - as part of the public education on the casino debate.
What is the fuss about a criminal's account?
It was the largest case of cheating involving a Singaporean - the former finance manager of Asia Pacific Breweries (Singapore) Pte Ltd - ended up in jail because he was 'hooked' on gambling.
He was given time off from prison work to write this 13-page paper - and took about five months till December.
It is almost academic in tone - informative - introducing words like 'whale' to mean the big players and 'house advantage' for the odds in favour of the casino in the long-term.
Self-deprecating at times - saying "like an inexperienced teenager succumbing to the lure of a newly discovered vice, I was soon hooked".
And at others, prescriptive. In fact, without irony, he recommends over 10 'safeguards' to protect Singaporeans from the ill-effects of casino gambling.
Chia spoke about being accosted by "alluringly colourful lights, attractive croupiers and the magical promise of easy money."
The turning point came when he lost three-quarters of a million dollars which he had painstakingly saved. To recoup losses, Chia sought bigger bets.
He travelled to exclusive casinos in Australia and London where he placed million-dollar bets.
Besides that, Chia gives an insight into just how lucrative the casino trade is, giving the example of just how much operators make in one game - Baccarat.
His plain message was the casino always wins. - CNA /de
Chia Teck Leng was a pseudo whale....one of the world's biggest mug punters....how dare he claims that he was the world's 2nd biggest punter?
He was only betting $20,000 on 2 boxes in Black Jack game.
Casinos are around to make profits and the only reason they allowed him such stakes in Black Jack was b'cos he was the biggest mug punter.
To play such stakes you've got to at least have some basic knowledge of cards-counting which he obviously he did not have.
The other Black Jack punter who was allowed to bet $50,000 by 7 boxes is an Australian billionaire who used to play with 30-40 millions US$ front money. He outsmarted a casino in Vegas, winning 40 millions Dollars on one trip and thereafter his stakes were immediately reduced down by all Vegas casinos to $5,000 per box.
His formula was his two bodyguards who were class one cards-counters from Sydney. His bodyguards were signalling him to play his hands.
Chia was very fond playing Black Jack in a London most exclusive casino called Aspinalls Club....the late John Aspinal once told me that it was like taking candy from a little kid.
Whales that I know of in this part of the world are one Australian billionaire, the big boss of Taiwan Bamboo Secret Society, Jakarta's biggest soccer bookmaker, a number of Indonesian billionaires, a few from Thailand, a couple from Malaysia and so many from China that the gaming industry can't keep track.
These whales favourite game is Bacarrat, and they usually come in with front money of 10-30 millions Dollars, and their bets per hand can go up to 400k.