Tag Archive: Hong Kong

With many forms of gambling moving from the traditional brick and mortar casino to online, controlling spending and the age of the players has become even more difficult. With this in mind, any licensing authorities around the world have introduced KYC regulations. These require players to upload government photo documents like a driver's license of a passport, as well as proof of address in order to prove they are of legal age. There are also a number of tools available for problem gambling

All gambling in China is illegal as the government wants to ensure social cohesion throughout the population. Nevertheless, a huge amount of gambling still goes on as the Chinese as a whole love to bet on anything. The government does offer a few betting opportunities, mainly horse racing, and football. For casino games, you'll require a special visa to visit either Macau or Hong Kong. Even though gambling is permitted here, there are no internet casinos allowed across the whole of China.

The casinos of Macau have a heavy dependency on high rollers coming across the border from China. Macau-based junkets offer incentives and even credit to these wealthy Chinese players. They receive a fat commission from the casinos themselves for providing players who will happily spend millions of dollars at a single sitting. It goes without saying, that this creates a massive need for money laundering and wire fraud. As a result, China is cracking down on Macau casinos to stop all junkets.

In mainland China, pretty much all ambling activities are illegal, with very high penalties for those caught. The problem is that the Chinese love to gamble. Though there are two Chinese national lotteries, Chinese tourists can still go to either Hong Kong or Macau to get their fill of either sports betting or casino games. Hong Kong offers horse racing with some of the biggest prizes in the world. As for Macau, the peninsular has some of the world's biggest and most luxurious casinos.

Both Macau and Hong Kong are the only two places in China where gambling is not forbidden. And because the Chinese love to gamble, then this has allowed Macau to become the largest gambling destination in the world. Though there are just 49 casinos in the province, they generate three times the income of Las Vegas, which has 135 casinos in operation. Though most of this comes from offering VIP games for Chinese high rollers, times are changing and anti-corruption laws have seen income drop.