• China has renewed its efforts to crackdown on illegal gambling this year, focusing the most on “cross-border” gambling. In June, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security launched a public online reporting platform that allows citizens to report each other for cross-border gambling activity.
• This is gambling with a digital twist, and it allows Chinese to bet without traveling to Macau or Las Vegas. It’s also a growing problem for China’s Communist Party, which says the transactions are.
• Cover Story: How China’s E-Commerce Giants Enable Illegal Online Gambling By Yuan Ruiyang, Ye Zhanqi and Han Wei By the end of September, Chinese authorities launched investigations of more than 8,800 cross-border gambling cases and arrested more than 60,000 suspects allegedly involved in the illegal businesses.

Two forms of gambling are officially legal in China while all other forms are prohibited. The national Welfare Lottery and Sports Lottery are both administered by the government and act as the sole form of sanctioned betting in the country. Together, the two state lotteries bring in north of $US40 billion per year (¥245 billion).

As impressive a number as that may be, the underground gambling industry does much better. Multiple sources have estimated that the illegal gambling market in China is at least 10 times larger than the national lottery. It’s obvious there’s a bit of a discrepancy between what the country’s gambling laws proclaim and what the people actually do.

Best Chinese Betting Sites

Though gambling is technically illegal in China, but the laws are not applied to “friendly games,” which means informal gambling in private residences. You can see them in the streets, in homes, in markets and in the parks of China: people sitting around small tables seriously playing tile or domino games. This week, China’s state-run media reported plans by the Chinese Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to amend the nation’s gambling laws to criminalize the “organizing.

Gambling Rules China

This isn’t surprising for any of us living in China. Gambling is everywhere. The state lottery has outlets all over the place while people routinely host social games at home. Criminal groups operate full-fledged underground casinos and clandestine Chinese betting sites. It doesn’t require much of an effort to find some sort of game in your neighborhood.

Offshore online casinos are doing big business in China as well. The Chinese government has had a tough time regulating these because they operate out of countries such as the UK and the Philippines where internet wagering is 100% legal and regulated. Chinese authorities have no method to shut these sites down other than using the Great Firewall internet censorship program in an attempt to block access to gaming websites.

Out of all the forms of gambling available in China, I would have to say foreign gaming sites offer the best value and greatest degree of safety. The Chinese lottery has terrible odds and is subject to high taxation. Underground casinos are fraught with danger and a lack of regulation. Foreign websites, on the other hand, offer the great combination of safety, convenience and value.

China is an extremely valuable market for internet casinos. A population of 1.35 billion and a pro-gambling culture makes it almost a holy grail for wagering. Despite its strict anti-gambling laws, many betting websites are willing to take the legal risk. The market is just too good to pass up.

Instead of blocking access to us like the law would imply, these companies cater to us with Chinese language websites and deposit methods that work with the Chinese Yuan Renminbi. You can use your debit card, bank transfer or cash voucher to make deposits that are credited to your account instantly. And when you’re done gambling, a withdrawal can be used to send the money straight to your bank account.

Is it Legal to Bet Online in China?

No. Chinese law prohibits all forms of gambling. Having said that, the risk of getting in trouble is low. Millions of Chinese citizens have been gambling online for years without any problems. In theory, the authorities could arrest you if they caught you placing bets over the internet. The risk is there, but it’s quite low.

Police forces in China tend to focus their efforts on breaking up underground gambling rings run by criminal groups inside China. Those are much juicier and easier-to-prosecute targets. If you’re just one person sitting at home placing bets on a gaming site based out of the Philippines, you have little to worry about.

Just remember it is technically illegal to participate in any form of unsanctioned gaming. You should decide for yourself if you feel the risk is worth it. If you do decide to proceed, it would be best to keep your mouth shut and avoid playing in public. Do your gambling at home on a private connection and keep your wins to yourself.

Depositing with RMB / CNY

The Chinese Yuan Renminbi is accepted by nearly every major betting site in the world. Most sites also accept the Hong Kong dollar. The deposit methods accepted by these companies are designed to work with the most popular Chinese banking options. Local bank transfers, online e-wallets, Asia365, AsiaPay88 and many more are accepted.

Most deposit methods require you to have a bank account. I would recommend setting one up even if you’re not particularly fond of banks. It will make the entire process so much more convenient as you can send and receive money electronically without having to leave the house.

The Great Firewall

China isn’t particularly interested in tracking down and prosecuting individual gamblers playing online from home. Instead, an internet censorship program is used to block access to known gaming websites. If you visit your favorite online casino and receive an error message, it probably got caught up in the Great Firewall.

There are a couple of things you can do to get around this. One is to run a search for the name of your website and look for one its alternate domains. China-friendly betting websites are aware of the situation and frequently set up new, temporary domains to help customers get around the block.

Another option is to use a VPN service to encrypt your internet traffic and get around any internet firewalls. VPNs are very easy to set up. All you need to do is sign up for an account, install the software and click the “connect” button. This will grant you full access to the entire internet.

China Gambling Laws

The gambling laws of China very clearly outlaw all forms of unsanctioned betting. Authorities are constantly on the lookout for underground gambling dens. News stories abound of police raiding criminally-sponsored underground casinos

The prohibition of gambling makes no distinction between offline and online gambling. Anything other than the state lottery is illegal. The closest alternatives you have are visiting Hong Kong to bet on horses or heading to Macau to visit its lavish casinos and sportsbooks.

Hong Kong and Macau are the sole exceptions in China. Each of these is considered a “special administrative region” and is has some latitude in determining the laws within. China has taken no action against either region for legalizing gambling, although China does discourage citizens from brining more than a limited amount of money into Macau.

China is slowly coming to terms with the rise of internet gaming. Both state lotteries have internet presences and do allow limited forms of online and mobile wagering. These lottery services offer a very basic form of gambling but are immensely popular nonetheless.

The China Welfare Lottery has been selling tickets since 1987 and uses proceeds to fund social welfare programs such as assisting the homeless, responding to disasters and so on. Last year’s Welfare Lottery sold more than 1 trillion yuan worth of tickets.

The China Sports Lottery was introduced in 1989 and now acts as the closest approximation to legal sports betting in the country. The sports lottery previously only accepted wagers on football and basketball, but expanded its options in 2014 to include hockey, handball, table tennis, badminton, water polo and volleyball.

Since going live in 1989, the sports lottery has seen incredible growth numbers. During last the 2014 World Cup, the lottery set a new single day sales record of RMB 550 million. Casual gamblers should find the sports lottery adequate, but those serious about getting the most value should look to foreign sports betting sites which have significantly better odds, a much wider ranges of sports and a greater variety of bet types.

Gambling in China is illegal under Chinese law^[1] and has been officially outlawed since the Communist Party took power in 1949.^[2] Any form of gambling by Chinese citizens, including online-gambling, gambling overseas, opening casinos overseas to attract citizens of China as primary customers, is considered illegal.^[3] In practice however, Chinese citizens participate in state-run lotteries, regularly travel to legal gambling centers overseas or in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau and access gaming through offshore based proxy betting and online gambling companies.

Mainland China[edit]

The Chinese government operates two lotteries: the Welfare Lottery and the Sports Lottery set up in 1987 and 1994 respectively. The Chinese government does not legally consider the lotteries a form of gambling.^[4] Illegal gambling in China remains common, including unofficial lotteries, clandestine casinos, and betting in games such as mahjong and various card games. In 2010, The Daily Telegraph (UK) reported that an estimated one trillion yuan are wagered in illegal gambling every year in China. Problem gambling exists in the country, and may be more prevalent than in countries with legalized gambling.^[1]Online gambling is another outlet for illegal gambling in the country.^[4]

Various attempts have been made to establish legal casinos in mainland China, although these have been unsuccessful.

In June 2018, the Chinese Government banned all online poker applications. App stores had to remove all poker related applications, and the promotion of poker in general via all social media channels in China (Wechat, Weibo) became forbidden.^[5]

Hong Kong[edit]

While some aspects of mainland Chinese law apply in Hong Kong, certain forms of gambling are legal and regulated in Hong Kong. The Law of Hong Kong is based on English common law, having been a British territory until 1997. Gambling in Hong Kong has been regulated since 1977.^[6] The Hong Kong Jockey Club organizes much of the legal betting in the region.

Macau[edit]

Gambling in Macau has been legal since the 1850s, when it was a Portuguese colony. The region has a history of gambling on traditional Chinese games. Gambling in Macau now primarily takes place in Western-style casinos; in 2007, Macau overtook the Las Vegas Strip in gaming revenues. As of 2016,^[7] 38 casinos operate in Macau, and the region's annual gambling revenues exceed US$27.9 billion.^[8]

Offshore gambling[edit]

Legal restrictions on onshore gambling in Mainland China have contributed to the growth of overseas and online gambling sites that cater to Chinese nationals. Integrated gaming resorts in Singapore, Australia, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines welcome growing numbers of Chinese tourists.

Proxy betting[edit]

As in person visits to offshore gambling venues can be both time consuming and attract the attention of law enforcement, proxy betting has grown in popularity, especially for VIP clients wishing to discretely place high stakes bets. In proxy betting, clients communicate with staffers wearing headsets at baccarat tables in offshore casinos. Proxy betting was outlawed in Macau in 2016 and has never been permitted in Australia or Singapore casinos, but now accounts for 40 percent of the $1 billion VIP gaming market in the Philippines, according to brokerage CICC.^[9]

Online gambling[edit]

Online gambling in Mainland China remains illegal, however internet traffic routed via VPNs, underground banking networks and payment platforms enable Mainland Chinese customers to access and remit funds to online gaming sites. According to 2019 estimates published in Economic Information Daily, an affiliate of state-owned news agency Xinhua, the annual amount bet through online gambling in the Mainland is more than one trillion yuan (US$145 billion), equivalent to nearly twice the annual income of China’s officially sanctioned lotteries.^[10]

In the Philippines alone, where Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) can register and legally operate, over a three year period from 2016 at least 100,000 Chinese nationals were estimated to have moved to Manila to work for online gambling operators as marketing agents, tech support specialists and IT engineers to serve Mandarin-speaking clientele.^[11] To side step restrictions on direct marketing of online gambling in Mainland Chinese print or social media, many online gaming sites seeking to attract Chinese customers have become shirt sponsors for English Premier League football teams. Dafabet’s sponsorship of Fulham FC and W88’s sponsorship of Wolverhampton Wanderers are just two examples of this trend.

Online Gambling Laws In China

Large betting sites like Bet365, BetPat & WilliamHill create mirror sites to bypass local controls as seen a list of how it works here SportsTalk.org in the Guardian it was commented at length that Chinese users can face jail.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abEimer, David (9 January 2010). 'China's secret gambling problem'. Daily Telegraph. Shenyang. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
2. ^'Rien ne va plus'. The Economist. 432 (9158): 25. 31 August 2019.
3. ^'Remarks by Chinese Embassy Spokesperson on Issues of Chinese Citizens concerning Gambling in the Philippines'. Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of the Philippines. 8 August 2019. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
4. ^ ^abKalenyuk, Mary (7 November 2013). 'The bets are on for gambling in China'. The World of Chinese. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
5. ^'Crackdown on online poker applications in China - Somuchpoker'. somuchpoker.com. Retrieved 2018-06-11.
6. ^Deans, Rob (2001). 'Online Gambling: Changes to Hong Kong's Gambling Legislation'. Gaming Law Review. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.5 (6): 555–560. doi:10.1089/109218801753336166.
7. ^2016 Wynn 10-K
8. ^'Macau Gaming Summary'. University of Nevada, Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research. Retrieved 7 April 2014.
9. ^'China targets PH in offshore gambling crackdown'. Manila Bulletin. Bloomberg. 8 August 2019. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
10. ^Master, Farah (9 July 2019). 'Chinese state media target Macau's Suncity in online gambling report'. Reuters. Retrieved 10 August 2019.
11. ^Dancel, Raul (20 July 2019). 'Loan Sharks Feed Off Philippine Casino Boom'. The Straits Times. Retrieved 7 August 2019.

Gambling Illegal In China

External links[edit]

Is Gambling Illegal In China

• China Sports Lottery official website(in Chinese)

Why Is Gambling Illegal In China