China Online Gambling Ring Foiled

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A Chinese gang has been accused of running a sophisticated online betting network that accumulated more than 100 billion yuan ($14.8 billion) over a three year period.

The network, which has been busy in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup, was foiled last month. It had been accepting bets through their site since August 2006. Gambling is banned in China, except for the ability to place small bets through state-run lotteries. China had vowed to crack down on illegal online football gambling during the World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa.

The alleged ringleader of the gang, who was known by the name, "Dark Brother," was arrested last month as he left a nightclub party in Shenzhen. "Dark Brother" is being accused of taking bets over the Internet through his gambling network which stretched across Southern and Eastern China and had its computer servers set up overseas. The alleged ringleader himself is from Hong Kong.

A known accomplice of "Dark Brother" who calls herself "Old Cat" is reported to have helped him to run the operation from an apartment where she lived with her child. When local officials were told of the arrest of "Old Cat", they responded in surprise: "The ringleader of a gambling gang? I never saw that!" "Old Cat" originally drew the attention of the police in 2007 and they began to investigate "Dark Brother" and his gambling network in December 2007.

Despite the fact that gambling is illegal in China, the Chinese Center for Lottery Studies estimates that more than $87 billion is spent by Chinese punters when they gamble through offshore betting networks. Chinese officials have arrested thousands of others in their recent crackdown on gambling that has been taking place across the country. Around 3,600 people were included and around $102 million was confiscated by police.

Many Chinese football fans were keen to bet on the matches that took place over the course of the 2010 World Cup, despite the fact that China's football team did not even make it to the championship in South Africa.

China expressed disappointment over the fact that their football team did not make it to the World Cup and has been lamenting their poor performance. In the meantime, the state news agency, Xinhua, has expressed the belief that China will not have any hope of creating football legends in a society that is rampant with fraud, gambling, ignorance and greed.

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