| GamblingPhD menu | Online Gambling Conviction Upheld
November 25, 2008 A Chinese court upheld an online gambling conviction recently, leaving Tam Chi-wai behind bars. Chi-wai was running a very successful online gambling business until he was caught, and estimates put him at having made millions of dollars before he was. However, according to Chinese law, online gambling is illegal, and therefore Chi-wai was breaking the law.
Chi-wai was convicted in June of running an illegal online gambling house, and was sentenced to eight years in jail. However, Chi-wai appealed the ruling, but has lost that appeal. He has been running his online gambling empire out of Myanmar since 1999 and had many employees at his disposal. The government says that he had more than 3,000 people assisting him with his illegal online gambling business.
In addition to serving eight years for illegal online gambling, Chi-wai has also been ordered to pay a $2.9 million fine. He ran his online gambling sites out of Guangzhou and Dongguan in the Southern Guangdong Province, and had several computer servers in other areas as well.
The online gambling business had more than 5,000 registered users just between August 2006 and March 2007 � and the numbers of overall users are much higher. As it is illegal under Chinese law to run an online gambling house or to even participate in it, he will serve the time and pay the fine.
Chi-wai was first convicted in the Intermediate People's Court in Kunming, and then the provincial high court upheld the ruling on appeal. It is not currently known what will become of his employees.
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