According to the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, the Chinese police have busted a total of 347,000 gambling cases in 2006, which involved more than one million people and confiscated $445 million of betting money.
Ministry officials said that the gambling trend has been restrained by police, which concentrated mainly on gambling at overseas casino, private lotteries and online gambling. The Ministry of Public Security also has a long-term prevention plan which they are now starting to implement.
Reports estimated that a total of $75 billion had been bet at overseas casino by last July. For comparison, China's tourism industry has the same annual revenue and only $5 billion are spent each year on China's state-run lottery.
Gambling was made illegal on mainland China in 1949. An amendment to the Criminal Law at the end of 2005 set harsher punishment for illegal casino operators, who may face up to 10 years in prison, in addition to fines. Despite this, the China Center for Lottery Studies of Beijing University estimated that revenue from illegal gambling in the country in 2005 was about $87 billion.
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