Several motions submitted to the latest session of the 10th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, proposed far stiffer punishments or even a ban on gambling, indicating the rampant level of money-based games in the nation and a renewed determination to crack down on the vice.

While gambling in casinos is forbidden on the Chinese mainland, underground casinos have mushroomed across the country in recent years, and in some areas high-stakes gambling is widespread, according to Vice-Minister of Public Security Bai Jingfu.

More than 160 casinos in neighbouring countries along the border with China, all target Chinese patrons, research at the China Centre for Lottery Studies at Peking University shows. Researchers estimate these overseas casinos may siphon off about 600 billion yuan ( US$72.5 billion) yearly, nearly offsetting all overseas investment in China in 2004.

And that is not all. Expanding within the country is a rampant online gambling community. Emerging with speed in 2000, online gambling has spread in more than 20 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Police monitoring daily visits to overseas gambling websites in a southern city have found that there are more than 100,000 visitors during the site's peak use.

What's more irritating to the government is that quite a few gamblers who bet extravagantly are civil servants who play either with public money or bribes.

Indeed, observes Wang Taiyuan of the Chinese People's Public Security University in Beijing, gambling has become a hidden channel for cash from bribery and has served as a hotbed for corruption.

A typical case involved Cai Haowen, a transportation official from Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in northeastern Jilin Province. Cai embezzled 2.76 million yuan ( US$333,000) and "borrowed" another 750,000 yuan ( US$90,000) from companies under his supervision. He used it all for gambling before he was arrested on February 6.

Cai was said to have gambled away the funds in 27 visits to a casinos located in a border town in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea between January and November 2004. The casino, now closed, was opened to Chinese only.

With Cai's case exposed in the Chinese media towards the end of last year, the Chinese Government launched a five-month gambling crackdown in January.

"China must take actions to meet these new and grave challenges," says Vice-Minister Bai Jingfu.

Bai said rampant gambling, if allowed to go on, might disturb the country's social and economic order and tarnish government authority.

A people's war

In fact, the effort to battle gambling is not new in the history of the People's Republic: China launched its first crackdown on gambling in the 1950s.

But the vice, which historians say emerged in China some 3,500 years ago, has resurged with a new vigour in recent years.

Wang Xuehong, executive director of the Centre for Lottery Studies, attributes the renewed gambling zeal to two reasons: dreams of becoming rich overnight, and motivation to have money at the loss of faith in everything else.

In the current crackdown, says Wang Taiyuan, the focus is on government officials and managers of State-owned enterprises involved in gambling scandals, along with underground gambling business owners, agencies of overseas casinos and managers of gambling websites.

Bai Jingfu offers reassurance that the whip is not used to beat fun-seekers like those who play mah-jong at home. This differentiation, says Wang Taiyuan, is a major breakthrough in the country's fight against gambling.

The focus, says the professor who has been following gambling and anti-gambling policies in China for years, shows that the Chinese Government no longer sees gambling just as a problem that corrupts social ethics, but also one that may undermine the country's economic security and social stability.

And police are not fighting the battle single-handedly in this year's campaign, dubbed "a people's war" by Minister Zhou Yongkang of the Public Security Ministry. His agency has opened a telephone hotline and set up a website for tips to battle high-stakes vice.

To restrain online and cross-border gambling, the Ministry of Information Industry, the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the General Administration of Customs and the National Tourism Administration have all joined in the battle, strengthening management over Internet websites, bank dealings and departure registration.

Also, 13 task forces have been dispatched to provinces where underground gambling is believed to be rampant to supervise local anti-gambling efforts.

By mid-February, police across the country have cracked more than 30,000 gambling cases and arrested about 80,000 suspects. The move inside China, which plugged the channel of gambling money outflows, so far has forced 92 casinos in neighbouring countries to close down.

The way out?

Despite its initial successes, Wang Xuehong, at the China Centre for Lottery Studies, says she is more concerned with the sustainability of the campaign: Will the impact of the crackdown last after it is over in May?

"That's a problem," she says. "Personally, I don't think a single hard strike can uproot gambling as a social problem. As betting is somewhat human nature, I believe strikes like this can only smash some casinos and put some violators into prison, but they cannot entirely stop people from being lured. People always think they can have another streak of luck."

Wang, the first doctorate holder in the field of lottery management in China, says authorities should now conduct research on the potential gambling market and look for measures to offer relief to gambling addicts. She even suggests China legitimize gambling.

Obviously, Wang belongs to an avant-garde in a country where gambling is labelled as one of three major social evils along with eroticism and narcotics.

A netizen refutes Wang's proposal as a bad idea: "Lotteries and gambling can only inflate people's dream for unearned income. No good at all!"

Scholars like law expert Qu Xuewu with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) are also opposed to deregulating the gambling industry, saying it is by no means an advisable choice.

"It may cause more social problems and crimes, which will add to the social and economic burdens of the country and offset the tax revenue increases the industry is expected to contribute," Qu says.

Nor does she believe the legitimization can reverse the gambling money flowing to overseas casinos, she says.

"That's only lottery researchers' wishful thinking. I think many gamblers will still choose to spend their money overseas even if gambling is legitimized on the Chinese mainland because of their preferences for exotic atmospheres. What is more important, those embezzlers and bribe-takers will feel safer at overseas casinos."

Qu also points out that if gambling is made legal in China, the country will no longer be justified to choke off the gambling money flowing into overseas casinos.

Severe punishments

She admits it is impossible to eradicate gambling once and for all, but says that tougher punishments for high-stake gamblers and gambling organizers can help rein in the current rampancy of the vice, adding that legislative support is needed, since related articles on gambling punishments in the current criminal law are obviously too lenient and outdated.

The current criminal law sets a maximum sentence for gambling offences at only three years, which, Qu says, is far too light a punishment to high rollers or organizers. Although more severe punishments cannot solve all the problems, she says, they are indispensable in the country's fight against gambling.

Qu agrees that betting might be human nature, but argues that it should not be respected at the cost of social order and national economic security.

"Surely we cannot kill a person's nature, but he can seek satisfaction at home by playing with family members and friends."

Wang Taiyuan of the public security university says that the policy in the current anti-gambling strike has actually provided a favourable mid-way: While high-stake gambling can by no means be tolerated, fun-seekers are not affected.

The professor also says that if the credibility of the country's social welfare lottery and sports lottery, currently the only two legal lottery products on the Chinese mainland, is improved under effective supervision, a lot of money might be diverted to these lotteries from overseas and underground gambling businesses.

(China Daily 03/24/2005 page5)