Joy turned to shock for a newlywed couple in Singapore when a thief took off with nearly S$50,000 ($39,083; £28,705) worth of red envelopes from their wedding reception.

The culprit Lee Yi Wei, who later gambled the money away, was on Tuesday sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to compensate the couple. His jail term will be extended by 100 days if he is unable to pay the money back.

The 36-year-old used to serve tables at the hotel in which the wedding was held and was familiar with its layout, a Singapore court heard.

In many Asian cultures, wedding guests typically do not give gifts but rathergive money, typically in red envelopes, to newlyweds as a sign of good luck.

These red envelopes are usually slotted into large boxes that are placed at a clearly demarcated table that guests will pass by before entering the wedding hall.

Lee, who was not a guest invited to the wedding on the 5 April, had made off with two such boxes while they were unattended. Upon realising the boxes were missing, the wedding organiser made a police report.

The court heard that Lee swiftly spent a few hundred dollars on clothing and gambled away S$12,200 in just four hours, the court heard.

He then converted most of his loot into online gambling credits and placed 195 bets with those credits within three days.

By the time he was arrested on 7 April, police managed to seize just S$3,000 from him.

In Singapore, the practice of gifting red envelopes to newlyweds, which started out as a gesture of goodwill, has in recent years been shaped by unspoken rules such as how much to give, with some newlyweds seeing red envelopes as a way of helping them recover their wedding expenses.

Online guides, which provide information on how much to give depending on where and when the event is held, are published and updated annually.

In many Asian cultures, red envelopes are also given out to children or younger unmarried relatives during the Lunar New Year.