CCP launches 4-pronged assault on igaming ahead of centenary

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has announced new protocols for tackling offshore online gambling companies such as “precision strikes” against firms recruiting Chinese to work abroad.

The developments were given during the 2021 National Working Group on Combating and Governing Cross-border Gambling Networks in which Deputy Director Niu Yibing ordered all departments and website platforms to enhance their monitoring of overseas gambling syndicates..

Niu’s directives were for all parties to “further improve their political positions, strengthen their sense of responsibility and urgency in cracking down on governance, and earnestly regard cracking down on cross-border online gambling as an important political task in the practice of ‘two safeguards’.”

Included in the new measures were four key tactics to identify and punish incriminated organisations. The first was to adopt so-called “precision strikes” by targeting overseas gambling groups using the internet to recruit China’s citizens for gambling through either online promotion chains and gambling-related livestreams, short videos or social media.

The second measure involves a crackdown on blockchain platforms as well as server hosting, network cloud storage, communication transmission and VPN services used for online gambling.

The third involves a strengthening of citizen reporting, and finally, the CAC advocates a “game of chess” in which departments coordinate domestic and overseas activities to, working together to “resolutely curb the spread of cross-border online gambling activities, and create a good online atmosphere and social environment for celebrating the centenary of the founding of the party and the smooth start of the 14th Five-Year Plan.”