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Jane Cheung

The second wife of late “Casino King” Stanley Ho Hung-sun, Lucina Laam King-ying, has passed away at the age of 79.

Laam, who had four daughters and a son with Ho, married the tycoon as a legal concubine at the age of 14.

She died from cancer at the private Hong Kong Sanitorium and Hospital in Happy Valley on Saturday.

It is understood that Laam’s bout with cancer had been going on for a long time, requiring a hospital stay for a whole year at one stage.

Sources said her condition deteriorated last week and she was sent to the intensive care unit, before she succumbed on Saturday.

It is understood that her eldest daughter, Pansy Ho Chiu-king, will be in charge of funeral arrangements.

On May 26, 2020, Ho, Macau’s richest man with a net worth of HK$70 billion, died at the same hospital at age 98 after staying in the ICU for three months.

Laam was born into an affluent military family in the mainland in 1943.

Her family moved to Hong Kong in 1949.

She reportedly met Ho at a ball in the mid-1950s, shortly after she had graduated from school.

The pair fell in love and Ho, who was already married to his first wife Clementina Leitao, also married the 14-year-old Laam as a legal concubine under Qing dynasty law in 1957.

Both Ho and Laam shared a passion for ballroom dancing, with the pair once dubbed “dancing king and dancing queen.”

For many years, Laam accompanied Ho to social gatherings and charitable events, until she moved to Canada to look after her father and Ho’s overseas investments in the 1980s.

Laam and Ho had four daughters and a son: Pansy, Daisy Ho Chiu-fung, Maisy Ho Chiu-ha, Josie Ho Chiu-yee and Lawrence Ho Yau-lung.

Most of them have followed in their father’s footsteps and are now senior executives in the family business.

Dubbed the Casino Queen, the eldest, Pansy, is seen as her father’s successor. She is the group executive chairwoman and managing director of Shun Tak Holdings’ (0242), which was founded by her father.

Daisy is the chairwoman and executive director of SJM Holdings (0880).

Maisy is Shun Tak’s executive director, while Lawrence is chairman and chief executive of Melco International Development (0200).

The youngest, Josie, is a singer-actress.

Womanizer Ho had two more wives after Laam.

They are Leitao’s private nurse Ina Chan Un-chan, 68, and Macau lawmaker Angela Leong On-kei, 61. He had 17 children – six sons and 11 daughters – with the four wives.

Leopold Chen

Police have received complaints over 458 scams involving consumption vouchers from January to April, including 187 of flimflammers using people’s personal particulars to get the vouchers and 32 cash-out cases, Secretary for Security Chris Tang Ping-keung said.

Another 239 cases involved people refusing to return consumption vouchers sent to their accounts due to other people wrongly inputting information.

They were among 5,582 scams between January and April involving more than HK$1 billion.

The police anti-deception coordination center, set up in 2017, put paid to 301 of the scams, averting losses amounting to more than HK$500 million.

The news comes as distribution of a second round of vouchers nears, setting off a race to launch incentive schemes by different electronic payment platforms to attract users.

PayMe by HSBC, a Johnny-come-lately to the voucher scene, is dangling HK$25 coupons for new voucher registrants as well as entry into a lucky draw with a top prize of a Tesla Model 3 electric car.

PayMe users who get others to register for the vouchers with the platform get HK$15 coupons, capped at 10 per person, while their friends who sign up also get the coupon.

The one who gets the most people to register wins a Model 3, while the following eight get an iPhone 13 Pro.

Another newcomer, BoC Pay by Bank of China (Hong Kong), is offering a HK$100 bonus for new registrations.

It will also offer discounts that add up to HK$15,000 at partner shops.

Tap & Go is offering gifts about Mirror boyband member Edan Lui Cheuk-on.

The gifts include a mobile data SIM card offering 300 GBs of local 5G mobile data.

Additional gifts will be available to those who recommend others to use Tap & Go for vouchers, Mox Card users, and those who add their Tap & Go Mastercard to payment platforms such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.