Jun 22 2010

Chinese Government Concerned Over Underground Online Gambling Industry

We recently heard that there are some problems concerning the online gambling industry in China recently. First of all, I will say that the activity is illegal in China since the Communist party came into power in 1949. Online gambling is currently an underground activity that moves billions of dollars without anyone noticing.

The issue that arose recently is that with the start of the World Cup, there have been gambling syndicates wanting to cash in on the World Cup. The Chinese government has stated that they want to focus all of their efforts in cutting down bets for soccer because it is starting to damage the Chinese Super League, the country’s top professional poker league, and it is an illegal activity.

“The World Cup and other sporting contests will provide momentum to online gambling activities,” said Gu Jian, the deputy chief of China’s Ministry of Public Security’s Internet security division, in a media briefing.

Xu Jianzhuo, Director of Network Security Protection Service at the Public Security Investigation Agency shared his opinion on the matter and stated that in China it is easy to open your own personal gambling site and that is why the activity has spread so quickly.

I have noticed that online gambling is an activity that keeps growing very fast around the world, but the legislation problem continues to restrict online gambling operations from providing services freely. Something that I will never be able to understand is how governments do not realize that banning the activity will not make things easier for them as people in the industry have found ways to do it underground anyway so they are not helping to prevent problem gambling in any way. Instead of making online gambling illegal they should try to incorporate it to the economy and turn their citizens into responsible gamblers, I wonder how long its will take for them to do this or if they ever will.