A Hong Kong man was recently sentenced to eight years in jail after he was found guilty of running several online gambling websites. The man was also fined 20 million Yuan which is equivalent to 2.9 million United States dollars. The man was running the operation out of the Yunnan Province in southwest China.

It is believed that this case is the largest in China’s’ history that involves online gambling. Almost 8.68 billion Yuan was wagered on the online gambling sites and more than 278 million Yuan was made in illegal profits.

The man’s name is Tam Chi-wai and he began the online gambling operation in 1999 as a gambling house and then moved up to an online betting network. Along with others, Chi-wai built up several gambling websites and then placed computer servers in Dongguan and Guangzhou in the southern Guangdong Province.

Over 3,000 people had worked for Chi-wai in his network. Some would maintain the betting network while others managed the websites. Others would hold several bank accounts to hide the earnings. From august of 2006 to march of 2007, one of the websites had over 5,000 people registered.

Chi-wai was sentenced in June but appealed. The provincial high court upheld the original sentence as according to China law it is illegal to operate a gambling house or gambling party.


- 2008-11-19