National People’s Congress in China has moved an amendment in its Criminal Law and has proposed prison sentences to foreign casino operatives if they advertise gambling to the people of China.
The Draft law proposes a prison sentence of 5-10 years for the operators who are found guilty of marketing gambling services and products in the mainland of China.
The amendment to Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China is likely to pass in March 2021, which is the next session for the Parliament in China. The draft has already been reviewed by the Standing Committee.
The move comes after Chinese Government had made various attempts to curb the cross-border gambling as it takes out billions of dollars of money out of China. The attempts included using Big Data to detect and arrest suspects.
The Ministry of Public Security stated that more than $150 billion were moved out of China in the year 2020 alone because of cross border gambling transactions.
Ministry of Public security further stated that it has arrested more than 60,000 suspects allegedly involved in such operations and has taken note of over 8,800 active cases of cross-border gambling, reported Casino.org.
Gambling is illegal in China and is barred under the law except the state-run lottery operations.