Although China is the one of the largest distributor of online piracy and other illegal copyrighted content, the Chinese authorities are working very hard to stop a different online phenomena - online casino gambling. All types of gambling are illegal in China ever since the communist party took over in 1949. Online casino gambling is forbidden and Chinese Police has cracked down on several online casino operations in recent years.
One of these Police raids took place last week when a Chinese Police force brought down an online casino soccer-gambling ring. The operation was estimated to be worth 1 billion Yuan, which are $125 million. The online casino served customers from across China and was very popular because of World Cup fever that is sweeping all of China. Online casino gambling is becoming more popular in the Asian country due to faster internet connections and the fact that land based gambling is not available.
Another major crack down on online casino gambling in China took place back in 2004 when Chinese authorities stopped an online casino syndicate in the province of Fujian that was estimated to attract 922 million pounds in one single month! China is the second largest population connected to the internet after the United States, and its online casino market potential is huge. Until the current legal standing of online gambling changes, it will be hard to run online gambling operations from within China, but foreign operators could offer gambling websites for the Chinese gambling public. |
