China’s CCDI says “non-collusion gambling” by government officials may constitute bribery

A new article published by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) suggests that “non-collusion gambling” by Chinese officials – essentially anyone holding a government post – may constitute bribery.

According to the article, titled “The logic of recognizing and proving non-collusion gambling bribery”, any Chinese official who gains financial benefit from gambling (in social games), even if this takes significant time rather than any fast wins, could be guilty of bribery.

“When state employees gamble independently with gamblers for a long period of time under the guise of entertainment, even if there is no intentional conspiracy to lose money between them, if the state employees win the money and eventually the other gamblers benefit greatly from the state employees in exchange for the assistance of the state employees, such cases can be regarded as trading in power and money and can be called non-collusion gambling bribery.”

The term “collusion” refers to a premeditated or bad faith arrangement to achieve a certain outcome. The term “non-collusion gambling” is used in the article to refer to gambling without a premeditated result.

This means that even if there is no collusion between gamblers and officials prior to betting, and an official ultimately wins money, this may still constitute a bribery offence.

The article also mentions three points that identify “non-collusion gambling bribery”:

• The mindset of the gamblers is the same and they deliberately lose money
  
• The mindset of gamblers is not entirely consistent, with some gamblers not admitting to intentionally losing money
  
• Gamblers allowing state officials to break the rules of gambling when gambling and let the official win

For point two, the article notes that some gamblers want officials to win but do not want to lose too much money themselves. As long as the state officials know that they will definitely win in the gambling process and the gamblers also know that the officials will definitely not lose, the transfer of benefits through gambling is an indirect and deliberate act, which constitutes “non-collusion gambling bribery”.

In the article, the CCDI analyses the characteristics of “non-collusion gambling bribery”, where both parties engage in bribery through gambling, not in a “one-to-one” or “single game, single time” manner, but possibly in the form of long-term with multiple bets.

The article points out that the conditions that constitute “non-collusion gambling bribery” are that “the gamblers may win on a single occasion, but in the long term and as a whole, the end result will be that the state employee will win and the other gamblers will lose.

“The gambler knows that even if the money he loses is occasionally won by other gamblers, it will eventually go to the state employee. Therefore, even if there is no collusion between the gamblers, the overall transfer of benefits is still certain.”

However, the CCDI pointed out that the proof of “non-collusion gambling bribery” is also very difficult to prove and that it is important to avoid idealization when obtaining evidence.

“There is little objective evidence such as documentary and physical evidence in such cases, and the facts are more dependent on the verbal evidence of the parties involved, which can easily change, so the evidence must be strictly gauged,” it said.

However, the CCDI also stressed that gambling itself is a criminal offence and depending on the amount and circumstances, the gambler should be subject to administrative penalties or criminal liability.