China Warns Bad Actors Regarding Cross-Border Gambling, Security Ministry to Strengthen Safeguards in 2022

February 18, 2022 China Crime & Legal Industry Updates

China continues to proclaim that individuals and groups involved in the illegal facilitation of cross-border gambling will be targeted in 2022 and the years ahead.

Gambling is mostly illegal everywhere in China other than in Macau, one of two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) in the People’s Republic. The two exceptions are China’s state-run lotteries — the Welfare Lottery and China Sports Lottery.

Aside from the lottery games, China prohibits gambling on the mainland. It’s also illegal for casinos or any other business or person to market gambling activities on the mainland.

Since the emergence of Macau’s commercial gaming industry, which expanded greatly after the enclave’s handover from Portugal to China in 1999, casinos have circumvented such laws by advertising VIP trips to the wealthiest residents in the world’s most populated country. Travel organizers say nothing about gambling, but when the clients arrive in Macau, they’re afforded large credit lines to gamble.

A key focus of President Xi Jinping’s reign has been to better scrutinize the flow of capital from the mainland. That mission has extended to Macau and VIP junket groups that have organized trips to the casino hub for Chinese millionaires.