Ourgame pledges cooperation
China’s crackdown on poker reportedly has resulted in the arrests of six employees of Beijing Lianzhong Co. Ltd., a unit of Chinese online poker and board game company Ourgame International Holdings Ltd.
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the employees were detained by authorities in Henan Province for using the company’s platform to “engage in personal activities contrary to the gambling laws” of the People’s Republic of China.
In a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Ourgame said that the detainees are “subject to potential prosecution by the public security bureau of Henan Province.” The filing was quick to add that none of these six individuals is a director of the company and said it has “established a committee to look into this matter and engaged external PRC legal counsel to report to the relevant public security authorities regarding preliminary evidence found relating to such employees’ behavior.”
Ourgame also pledged to “cooperate fully” with the Chinese government in its investigation, and further denied “any illegal actions on the part of the group,” its board and group members.
Chinese media reported that at least one official from Ourgame was extradited from Thailand to China last month, according to IAG, which added that the reports have not been confirmed.
Last month Chinese authorities announced that poker would no longer be recognized as a competitive sport and banned the promotion of Texas Hold ‘em via social media applications. The new ban mandated that all apps offering any form of social poker must be shut down and removed from app stores by June 1. Social media channels such as WeChat will also be banned from promoting any form of Texas Hold ‘em.
In its conciliatory statement, Ourgame said it will “actively respond to the ‘National Fitness’ strategy, promote the popularization and development of intellectual sports, meet the leisure and entertainment needs of the masses and at the same time, consciously assume the responsibility of supervision and control and conduct real-time supervision on violations in the game. We will supervise and clean up, increase monitoring of problem accounts and user behaviors, ensure the healthy, fair and harmonious game environment and jointly promote the standardized and healthy online game market.”
Meanwhile, two poker rooms have closed in Macau, at Melco Resorts & Entertainment’s City of Dreams and Galaxy Macau. The International Poker Tour Macau, which was to have been held last week at the Venetian Macau, was cancelled. Organizer Alisports released a statement to players that the event was shelved “after careful consideration” because many Chinese players qualified for the event via the Alibaba poker app.
