China has launched a judicial review aimed at specifically defining online gambling as a crime, as the crackdown, revealed last week, made its first significant arrests.
The review, which will specifically criminalise online gambling, is expected to be completed in the next few weeks, according to reports coming out of the region.
Newspaper reports also said around 600 people, including some government officials, were arrested in a raid on a Taiwanese company that had been operating online soccer betting websites for Chinese citizens.
But police have reported difficulty in tracing the activities of online gambling firms in the region and are now looking to create new anti eGaming laws.
"Collecting evidence of online gambling is a hard nut to crack,” Yu Hongyuan, vice-director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau, said.
One website, http://888.kk-in.net, was named but it is believed several others were also used by the gambling firm.
Police reports said US$60.5m of gambling funds were seized, and several agents working for the Taiwan-based Baoying Company had been arrested.
Asian gambling is predominately run by agents, who collect money from punters and place bets on their behalf with the bookmakers.
One agent arrested was Beijing resident Wang Xin, who was allegedly working for the Baoying Company.
Another agent named only as Gu was also arrested on 14 January, but it is reported he was working for a higher-level agent named Jin whose whereabouts are unknown.
The crackdown on online gambling was launched last week in response to a scandal involving government ministers losing millions of dollars to Korean and Taiwanese gambling firms.
source : egaming review magazine
