Ministry of Public Security publishes 2022 cross-border gambling crackdown results

China's Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday that police nationwide cracked more than 37,000 cases involving cross-border gambling in 2022¹. The statement, carried by the official government portal, listed the platforms, venues and support operations shut down over the same period¹.

According to the ministry, police operations nationwide busted over 2,600 online gambling platforms and more than 1,100 casinos, as well as in excess of 2,500 illegal payment platforms and underground banks¹. Over 1,200 technical support teams and 1,600 platforms promoting gambling were also cracked during the year¹. The ministry added that police managed to crack 19 major cases during the country's three-month crackdown targeting cross-border gambling¹.

The figures were published a day after a court in Shaanxi province handed down a verdict in one such case. The court found that 24 of the defendants provided services to gambling websites including advertising, member recruitment and payment settlement, helping collect service fees or gambling funds, while one defendant surnamed Deng acted as an agent for a site and took bets; all were convicted of the crime of running a casino².

The case centered on websites operated by the Manila-based Shuanglong Group in the Philippines, which ran gambling sites including Leduc, Cai Shijie and Letiantian, with Leduc offering electronic games, live dealer play, card and board games, fishing games and Hong Kong lottery betting². The sites were aimed mainly at recruiting members inside China, and used "fourth-party payment" platforms to handle deposits and withdrawals². Investigators found that from April 2017 to October 2020 the Leduc lottery site registered more than 48,000 member accounts with cumulative deposits of nearly 2 billion yuan, and that police identified 627 linked bank accounts and three wealth management accounts². A group of 17 defendants in Shenzhen used personal bank cards to provide payment settlement for the site, moving more than 197 million yuan and charging a commission of six per thousand². Seven others worked as customer service and finance staff at the Leduc site in Manila between March 2017 and August 2020, and one defendant became an agent for the site from November 2018².

The presiding judge, Wang Jiaqi, said such sites are set up abroad and use the internet and mobile terminals to transmit gambling video and data while organizing and attracting people inside China to bet, and that cross-border online gambling spreads quickly, involves large sums and is often run from overseas while penetrating the domestic market².

What it means for players

The enforcement figures cover the whole of 2022 and describe action against operators, payment intermediaries and promoters rather than against individual bettors¹. The Xi'an case shows how the chain is treated in practice: staff who worked abroad for an offshore site, agents who recruited players inside China, and people who supplied bank cards for payment settlement were all convicted of running a casino, with prison terms and fines². The court also confiscated 104 million yuan in funds it identified as gambling money, and investigators said funds in accounts used to receive or move gambling money were treated as gambling funds and confiscated when the holder could not show a lawful source². That approach sits alongside China's wider rules on gambling payments and frozen accounts and on what happens to Chinese citizens who gamble on cross-border sites. The ministry said joint efforts with other government departments will be intensified to create a social atmosphere that opposes gambling¹.

What happens next

The ministry said cooperation with other departments will be stepped up, with work focused on rectifying gambling-related bank accounts and payment institutions, cleaning up gambling websites and apps, and managing the entry and exit of people involved in gambling². No further dates or targets were given².