China Introduces Clearly-Defined New Online Gambling Laws

Posted: September 17, 2010

Updated: October 4, 2017

The government has laid down the law on internet gambling in China in hopes of addressing certain vagueness in national criminal law.

The government has laid down the law on internet gambling in China in hopes of addressing certain vagueness in national criminal law. The new law was formulated and issued by the combined efforts of the country’s supreme court, the “Supreme People’s Procuratorate” and the ministry of public security.

Under the new Chinese gambling laws, “anyone who establishes or runs a gambling den can face up to three years in jail and fines” according to the official Chinese news agency Xinhua. For serious offenses, a sentence of up to 10 years in prison may be handed down. “Serious offenses” are defined as those involving total commissions of over 30,000 Chinese yuan (about $4,460) or total volume of over 300,000 yuan; of over 120 gamblers; or in sharing profits from a gambling website of over 30,000 yuan.

The law and its penalties apply to “anyone who establishes a gambling website and takes bets; establishes a gambling website and provides it to others to organize gambling; acts as an agent for a gambling website and takes bets; or shares profits with gambling websites.”

Upon announcing the new law, authorities also provided some statistics in this year’s crackdown on gambling at internet sportsbooks and online casinos in China. Over 7,360 have been arrested and about $148 million seized since January, while another 320 suspects from Hong Kong, Macao, the Philippines and Malaysia have also been detained.

The new law says nothing about enforcement overseas of foreign-based casino operators, but probably the safest thing for most parties would be to play at established online casinos serving Chinese customers.