A Hong Kong businessman has found to his cost just how seriously the authorities in Mainland China regard the promotion and sale of unauthorised gambling services.
Tam Chi-wai has just been jailed for eight years after being found guilty of running a number of illegal online casinos. He was also fined USD$2.9 million in what is believed to be the biggest case of its kind in China.
It involved about 8.68 billion yuan in wagered money and more than 278 million yuan in illegal profits, Xinhua news agency said, quoting a source with the Yunnan High People’s Court in southwest China.
Tam, a Hong Kong resident, allegedly set up a gambling house in Myanmar, next door to Yunnan province, in 1999 and started to develop an online betting network employing up to 3,000 people, Xinhua said.
One of the websites reportedly attracted 5,198 registered users from August 2006 to March 2007. Associates allegedly set up and operated hundreds of different bank accounts to hide illicit earnings, said the report.
Officially the only gambling allowed inside the People’s Republic of China (excluding Macau and Hong Kong) is run by state lotteries.
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