Last year, China’s Payment and Clearing Association said its member organizations blocked nearly CNY2 billion (US$277 million) worth of potential illegal gambling payments.
According to GGRAsia, the association is a non-profit supervised by the People’s Bank of China made up of banks and other financial institutions as well as financial technology companies and licensed non-banking payment institutions.
“Over 60,000 gambling-related suspicious transactions” were detected in 2022, its report stated, with “4,292” payment accounts and “54 merchants.”
In recent years, the Beijing government has cracked down on cross-border gambling and capital flight, a move that hobbled Macau’s once-dominant VIP sector, shut down most junkets, and shifted the emphasis to premium mass and mass gaming. Macau is the only place in China where gambling is legal.
China’s amended criminal code makes it a crime to partake in or assist others in illegal gambling activities. Those measures took effect on March 1, 2021.
