General Casino News

The Chinese government has launched a widespread crackdown on online gambling with websites and egaming marketing offices facing closure by the police.
Casinos offering live gaming are believed to be the main target of the move, which is part of a wider initiative designed to block Chinese citizens from engaging in cross-border gambling.

"The campaign will try to block the channels through which many Chinese go abroad for gambling,” Zhou Yongkang, a Chinese state-councillor and the Minister of Public Security, said.

And operators in the region said that the crackdown, which is being driven by central government, is likely to be high-profile and intensive.

It is a response to a national scandal involving government ministers spending millions of dollars gambling at land-based casinos in North Korea and Macau.

Reports coming from the region said the officials had taken money directly from state-run businesses and schemes and the amounts total hundreds of millions of dollars.

Communist party officials and executives from state-owned companies will face the heaviest punishments under the crackdown.

And the government is hoping that by preventing Chinese citizens from accessing any form of foreign gambling it will restore faith in the ruling Communist party.

But Tim Lame, CEO of Asian-focused sportsbook and casino Easybets, said the move was likely to be a short-term measure.

“This is mainly in response to the trend that a number of cross border Casino had been set up around the China Borders in Burma, North Korea, Russia and of course Macao,” Lambe said.

Lambe also said the online sites that would face the most pressure would be Burma-based live-dealer casinos.

Although gambling remains illegal in China, the authorities have recently adopted a more liberal attitude towards some forms of betting.

One high-profile Hong Kong-based firm, Citic Pacific, signed a deal with Irish betting exchange operator Betdaq at the end of last year to operate a Chinese language betting exchange.