Guangdong police yesterday urged the
province's large number of football fans to shun illegal betting
gangs during the month-long World Cup.
"Those who gamble on the games will violate laws and regulations
and will be seriously punished," said Xiao Shengxian, a police
officer from Guangdong Provincial Bureau of Public Security.
He added special campaigns would be launched to combat illegal
betting during the tournament, which kicked-off in Germany on
Friday.
Officers will focus on underground football betting gangs and
known betting locations in the province, he said.
According to Chinese laws and relevant regulations, gambling and
betting is illegal on the mainland.
Illegal betting is believed to have affected sales over the past
few months of local official football lottery tickets in the
southern Chinese province, which borders Hong Kong and Macao
special administrative regions.
Police cracked several cases involving betting on football
matches in the cities of Guangzhou, Dongguan and Yunfu in April,
detaining many suspects and seizing large sums of money.
Guangzhou police closed two football betting locations in the
city's Haizhu and Tianhe districts, detaining 12 suspects.
A total of 12 computers and cash totalling 2.45 million yuan
(US$306,250) and 180,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$23,225) were seized
in the two locations.
Police in Dongguan established a special task force that
consisted of 36 officers.
Five suspects were detained and more than 36 million yuan
(US$4.5 million) was seized when an underground betting location in
the city's Guancheng District was busted.
Officers in Yunfu, in the western part of Guangdong, also
cracked an underground betting location, detaining five suspects
and seizing 1.46 million yuan (US$182,500).
(China Daily June 13, 2006)