Asian-facing gambling operator 6686, the sleeve sponsor of Wolverhampton Wanderers and official betting partner of Wolfsburg, Lazio and AS Monaco, is illegally streaming live games from the Premier League, the Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and a number of other competitions on its Chinese language website

Do you want to watch the best that European club football has to offer for free? This is easy. All it takes is to switch on a VPN (Virtual Private Network), choose Hong Kong as a location and head for 6686.com. Three clicks later, it’s all there.

On the right of the screen, a blue “play” button icon indicates which games can be watched live on the bookmaker’s website. It is almost all of them. The pictures originate from legitimate broadcasters such as Telemundo, Setanta, Arena Sport and others, but also directly, it seems, from the raw international video feeds which the Premier League, the Bundesliga and other European leagues provide to their rights-holders, and which must have been captured straight from the satellites beaming the precious video content to legal broadcasters.

This would explain the startling quality and clarity of the picture, a world away from the shaky illegal streams which many frustrated or impoverished sports fans share online. There is hardly any buffering. When there is, the 6686.com logo spins for just a few seconds before the image stabilises and offers the kind of viewing comfort which could be expected from a legitimate broadcaster such as Sky Sports, Canal + or TNT. The delay with the live action is no greater than what is usually experienced when using the online versions of those legal platforms.

The problem is that 6686.com has not acquired the streaming rights of any of the competitions it shows on its Chinese website. It has not paid any compensation to the networks who spent tens, sometimes hundreds of millions for the privilege of showing live action from the world’s top leagues to their subscribers. 6686’s video offering is 100 percent illegal. It is piracy on a mind-boggling scale, as it is not just the top five European leagues which can be watched on 6686.com, as long as the site is accessed from outside the United Kingdom.

In the course of a single afternoon, we were able to access on 6686.com live streams of games played in the Premier League, both divisions of the Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1, the Dutch Eredivisie, the Belgian Jupiler League, the Portuguese Primeira Liga, the EFL Championship, the Czech First League, the Turkish SüperLig, the Polish Ekstraklasa, the Swiss Super League, the Saudi Pro League, the Austrian Bundesliga and even the Ukrainian second division and the Indian Super League. It would be much quicker, in fact, to list the competitions which are not streamed live on the bookmaker’s website. Moreover, what goes for football goes for other sports, such as baseball, tennis or basketball. The scale of the operation beggars belief.

No registration process or password are required to access the streams. No subscription is necessary. No fee is charged to the viewers. No advertising pop-ups suddenly appear on the screen. Full-screen vision is available for all streams. Were it legitimate, this would be the go-to website for all football fans; but legitimate it is not.

Despite its official partnerships with well-known European clubs and the licence granted by the UK Gambling Commission via White Label company TGP Europe, 6686.com is one of a myriad illegal Asian gambling operators which cater almost exclusively to customers from Far Eastern countries where gambling on sports is illegal and may even lead to criminal prosecution.

Until now, the Premier League has chosen to turn a blind eye to the proliferation of partnership and sponsorship deals between its clubs and ‘questionable’ Asian-facing gambling operators. But the Premier League is also known to be much more reactive when it comes to breaches of copyright and piracy of its precious product. In May of this year, following an investigation launched by the Premier League, five British individuals were prosecuted and sentenced to a total of thirty years and seven months in jail for running three pirate streaming operations from the UK. Yet what kind of action the world’s most popular league could take in this case is unclear, as the opacity surrounding 6686.com is complete.

No-one – and this includes 6686’s partners Wolves, Wolfsburg, Lazio and Monaco, as well as the UK Gambling Commission and the Premier League itself – is aware of the identity of the operator’s ultimate beneficial owners, and the bewildering multiplicity of mirror websites it uses to trawl for punters makes it almost impossible to shut them all down.

To complicate things even further, though TGP Europe has registered the domain name 6686.co.uk with the UK Gambling Commission, it is 6686sports.co.uk which the Isle of Man-based company lists as its partner on its own website, where it is described as “the official sleeve sponsor and Asian betting partner of Wolverhampton Wanderers”. So 6686sports.co.uk is 6686.com? It is indeed.

Further proof of it is provided by using a UK internet network with no VPN and, instead of typing 6686.com, using the different URL which the Asian-facing website redirects to by default. Normally, with no VPN, an error message would appear on the screen, telling the UK visitor that the website they’re trying to reach is geo-blocked; but not this time. This visitor is automatically redirected to 6686sports.co.uk. The loop is complete.

It should be added that 6686sports.co.uk is not a going concern. The web analysis tool SimilarWeb shows that their website received a mere 2,000 visits in the month of August, fewer than most genuine gambling operators would get in a matter of minutes. It is a means to acquire legitimacy by association, thanks to the stamp of approval given by a UK government agency. The real action is elsewhere, with 6686.com, the brand which was also advertised in the stadiums of Leicester City and Nottingham Forest in England last season.

As to 6686.co.uk, the only brand name actually registered by TGP Europe with the UKGC, it does not even exist as a functioning website. Typing it in any browser leads to the domain name broker GoDaddy, where it is suggested that 6686.co.uk can be purchased via an agent who will only charge a little over 50 pounds for their work.

There is no indication that the 6686.com which pirates football streams from all over the world is a different entity from the 6686.com which paid millions to become the official partner of Wolves, Monaco, Lazio and Wolfsburg. A rogue operator is not, somehow, impersonating the real bookmaker. The truth is that a ‘grey market’ – in plain English, illegal – bookmaker which was deemed worthy of a UK licence and managed to become the “official Asian betting partner” of four famous European clubs has been and still is stealing the most valuable product which these clubs and their leagues have to offer: live footage of their matches.

Chinese fixing syndicate and a real new threat to football as UEFA send report to Athlone Town

Fears are growing that Chinese criminals have taken match-fixing to new levels by buying stakes in European clubs and then organizing corruption of these teams’ fixtures.

A stake in Athlone Town, a club under investigation over an allegedly fixed match in the League of Ireland last weekend, is believed to have been sold to a party ultimately funded by a Beijing-based fixing syndicate.

The same group, control by an individual whose name is known to this newspaper, is understood to have taken interests in lower-league clubs in Portugal, Latvia and Romania where fixing has also been suspected.

Athlone are under investigation by the Irish police, the Irish FA and European football’s governing body UEFA over their 3-1 defeat to Longford Town last weekend.

A confidential UEFA report sent to Athlone on Friday says: ‘There is clear and overwhelming betting evidence that the course or result of this match was unduly influenced with a view to gaining corrupt betting profits.’

Sources say gamblers with inside knowledge profited by around £500,000 from bets placed in the unregulated Asian markets on at least two goals being scored in the first half (Longford were winning 2-0 at half-time), and on four of more goals being scored in the game. Longford went 3-1 ahead in the 87th minute.

Sources say the stake in the Irish club bought by the Chinese firm was lower in value (around £425,000) than estimated betting profits from that one game alone. Athlone have received recent investment but officials have declined to say how much or where from. It is not known if the cash was paid directly from China or via intermediary organisations.

Athlone did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment from the MoS but a club statement said they were ‘absolutely shocked’ by fixing allegations.


Chinese firms have bought interests around 20 clubs across Europe in recent years, almost all of them with no hint of controversy, let alone scandal. But governing bodies will now be on red alert over deals, not least for relatively large sums in the lower leagues. ‘If an investment offer for a “lesser” team seems too good to be true, it probably is,’ says one investigator.

Two other Athlone matches this season caused alarm among market watchers, although it is not known if UEFA are aware of this. One was against UC Dublin on 8 April, which Athlone lost 4-1. Sources from both the ‘integrity’ side of the football industry and in the betting underworld say huge sums were won in that match by bets place on at least five goals being scored in the fixture. UC Dublin’s fourth goal - the fifth in the game - was scored in the 89th minute.

The Irish police will begin an official investigation on Monday.

Athlone have seen a spate of comings and goings among the playing and coaching staff since the mystery investment in the club.

Among the recent arrivals was Latvian goalkeeper Igor Labuts, who has played for at least two other teams where money is believed to have been injected by the Beijing firm - and have been investigated for fixing. He has admitted to being approached in the past by fixers and thwarted their advances, and says he has been shocked by fixing allegations against his clubs.

‘I know that I am clean but it’s unpleasant and my reputation has been damaged,’ he said.

A UEFA spokesman said: ‘UEFA is completely committed to eradicating match-fixing, a disease that attacks football’s very core.’

Sources say UEFA have investigated around 200 matches per season over the last three years in leagues across the 55 nations in their region over suspicious betting patterns and fixing concerns.

Over the past seven years, UEFA has been involved in the successful prosecution of 14 match-fixing cases across the Continent where the guilty parties were banned for between a year and life.

While the ratio of allegations to prosecutions is hugely disproportionate, it is notoriously difficult to prove fixing beyond any doubt. Typically a successful case will involve tracing a money trail on bets and then linking that unequivocally to corrupt players or officials.

China’s latest proposed internet regulations would make foreign websites impossible to reach

China’s list of blocked websites and internet services is already big, and it continues to grow. But a potential new law could make it far larger.

On March 25, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which oversees China’s internet and telecommunications sectors, publicly released a draft regulation that outlines rules on domain name registrations for websites.

The majority of the document elaborates on existing regulations—introduced in 2004 and updated regularly—about operating domain name registrars. Much of it is expected. For example the draft states that all registrars issuing domain names from China must obtain a license from the MIIT or another government body, set up “a management system” from within the nation’s borders, and obtain the personal information of a domain name’s operator.

But there’s one new section that might cause alarm. Article 37 states:

Domain names engaging in network access within the borders shall have services provided by domestic domain name registration service bodies, and domestic domain name registration management bodies shall carry out operational management.

For domain names engaging in network access within the borders, but which are not managed by domestic domain name registration service bodies, Internet access service providers may not provide network access services.

If taken literally, this could mean that any website that has not procured its domain from inside China will no longer be accessible from within the country’s border. That could have a significant impact on businesses and individuals.

Currently a select number of websites, including Facebook and the New York Times, are inaccessible in China. The Great Firewall (a catch-all term to describe China’s means for blocking websites) redirects traffic to banned pages to bogus IP addresses. But the new regulations, if taken to the extreme, would require that even harmless websites—your mom’s favorite recipes site, for example—be blocked. Only after such sites registered with Chinese registrars could they appear again in China.

“Censorship would be the norm and not the exception. In the past you were allowed to exist as long as you didn’t piss anyone off,” Lokman Tsui, an assistant professor of journalism and communications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told Quartz. “The worst-case scenario means that basically the internet in China will be closed to the rest of the world.”

The draft proposal states that violators of the regulations would face a fine of up to 30,000 yuan (about $4,600). The draft is open for discussion until April 25. Quartz has reached out to the MIIT for comment, but it has not yet responded.

There are specific advantages to requiring all websites to register their domains in China, Tsui says. Domain name owners must provide their address and other personal information to registrars, for example, so authorities could more easily find someone behind a website containing “sensitive” information.

To be sure, it’s not clear at this point if the new rules will be enacted as stated in the draft. Indeed practical considerations might make it unlikely. Chinese authorities regularly move to enact extreme restrictions on internet freedom, only to backtrack or not enforce them. Their efforts to require social media users to register accounts under their real names have been marginally effective, though China’s most popular social networks by now have complied.

Even if the measure doesn’t pass, its appearance in a draft proposal reinforces China’s efforts to police the internet and media from within its own borders. In February, Xi Jinping made a visit to the offices of state TV broadcaster CCTV, where he told employees, “All the work by the party’s media must reflect the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority, and safeguard the party’s unity.” Days earlier, authorities issued regulations requiring foreign publishers to establish servers in China if they want to reach the domestic market—restrictions that, if enacted to the letter, would be just as sweeping as the ones suggested by the recent draft.

“Right now we’re seeing an escalation of pressures and crackdown on internet and press freedom, as well as human rights in general,” Tsui says. “This is in line with that.”

Bwin.Party sells poker tournaments business for $35m

Bid target Bwin.Party has sold its televised poker tournaments business to a Chinese gaming company for $35m (£22.1m).

The online gambling firm is offloading World Poker Tour (WPT) to Ourgame International, a Hong Kong-listed developer of internet and mobile games.

Loss-making WPT broadcasts high-stakes poker tournaments in more than 150 countries, and Bwin.Party will remain a sponsor of its shows and events until December next year, with first refusal over other deals beyond that date.

Dave "The Devilfish" Ulliott, Britain’s best-known professional poker player who died earlier this year, is one of WPT's past champions.

The sale comes as Bwin.Party itself considers two competing takeover approaches, one of which is understood to value the company at €1.5bn (£1.1bn). Martin Weigold, finance chief of the FTSE 250 group, said the WPT disposal was “consistent” with its plan to sell non-core businesses.

“We believe that now is the right time to release that value for shareholders so that we can focus our efforts on our core real money gaming and technology business,” he added. Shares in Bwin.Party were up 2.9pc in afternoon trading on the sale.

WPT, which holds tournaments in cities such as London and Las Vegas, posted an adjusted loss of €4.1m last year on revenues of €10.4m. PartyGaming, which merged with Bwin in 2011, bought the business for $12.3m almost six years ago. Beijing-based Ourgame, the new owner, agreed a licensing deal with WPT covering a number of Asia countries in December.

Bwin.Party made no mention of its potential takeover in Monday’s announcement.

Amaya, the Canadian giant behind Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker, has teamed up with GVC for a €1.5bn approach for the company, while online gambling group 888 Holdings has also made a rival takeover proposal.

Shares sales earlier this month by the two founders of PartyGaming rattled investors by sparking concerns that a deal for Bwin.Party might not materialise.

Chinese Teenager Chops Off Hand to Cure Online Gaming Addiction

A Chinese teenager known only as Little Wang (which is what I would have been called had I chopped off said cock), has reached worldwide infamy after severing his left hand, at the wrist, in a bid to cure his addiction to online gaming.

According to press reports, Little Wang’s mother – who we will refer to as Mummy Wang, as she wanted her identity kept a secret – said that Little Wang was a ‘smart boy’ (I think we will withhold judgment on that one). She told reporters that she went into his bedroom to find a note that read:

“Mum, I have gone to the hospital for a while. Don’t worry. I will definitely come back this evening.”

It’s believed he took a knife from the house, found a suitably comfortable park bench, severed the hand, before hailing a cab with his other hand, and instructing the man to drive him to the hospital.

The kid left the hand on the park bench.

“We cannot accept what has happened,” Mummy Wang told reporters, “It was completely out of the blue.”

It’s estimated that 24 million kids in China are addicted to some form of Internet ‘something or other’. The problem has even become so concerning that military style boot camps are being created as a way of helping the addicted go cold turkey.

And just think, the WPT President, Adam Pliska, recently told us that he was excited about the Chinese online poker market.

China Online Gambling. Illegal But Everywhere.

Media reports state that online gambling in China soared during the recent World Cup. Interest was so intense that gambling income in Macao significantly declined, causing a major blow to the bottom line of major casinos that normally rely on a steady flow of high and low rollers from mainland China. The punters seem to have put their money into online gambling on the World Cup, with revenue at the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’) government run lottery site increasing by over 80% during this period. Steve Dickinson and Arlo Kipfer of Harris Moure PLLC, China, explore the upsurge of online gambling in China during the World Cup given that gambling is illegal in China.

This then raises the big question: the Macao casinos exist because gambling is illegal in China. No substantial casino business exists in China, forcing punters to head to Macao. If gambling is illegal in China, how does online sports gambling work? If gambling is illegal in the PRC, how is it possible for the World Cup to have made such an impact? As always in China, the story is complex. It runs as follows.

The general ban on gambling in China is subject to one exception. The PRC government operates two legal lotteries: the China Welfare Lottery and the China Sports Lottery. The China Sports Lottery experienced its 20-year anniversary in April of this year. The sports lottery allows legal betting on all sporting events. By far the most popular is betting on football: both Chinese national football and the European leagues. As a result of this opportunity for legal gambling, China has become a nation of football fans. But these fans are bettors, not players.

At its inception, sports lottery tickets were sold at exclusive outlets found in all of China’s cities. The number of oudets has always served as a limitation in the number of potential customers. In order to expand access, the China Sports Lottery entered the online world in 2010. The new online rules allow licensed sports lottery vendors to partner with website providers to offer online lottery purchases. Such legal websites must be approved by government regulators and are subject to strict regulation. Due to the tight regulation, licensed sports lottery websites are still uncommon in China. As might be expected, the national lottery administration has monopolised access to its great profit.

During the World Cup craze in China, operators of the major retail sales websites in China saw an opportunity to cash in. These websites partnered with licensed local lottery vendors to offer their lottery products online through retail sales websites. The lottery sales were offered just like any other retail offering on the site. This form of lottery betting was technically in violation of the regulations. The website is licensed as a commercial website. The local lottery agent is licensed to sell lottery tickets. But, the regulations require specific approval to sell those lottery tickets online. No such approval was obtained, making sale on the major retail websites technically illegal.

However, there was money to be made and no one in China worried about the technical details. There is good reason for this. The major retail websites are well run, reducing to a minimum the chance of deceptive practices against the consumer. The government ultimately received a share of the proceeds through income earned by the local licensed vendor. The total income earned by the government was greatly increased due to the massive advertising power of the websites. In this setting, the government regulators had no motivation other than to say: send us the cheques.

It is not clear whether this very successful foray into the sale of sports lottery tickets on the part of the e-commerce giants will continue. The current feeling is that this was just a temporary event created by the unique interest of the Chinese people in the World Cup. However, the substantial income earned must be attractive to all involved and it is certainly possible that this semi legal sale of sports lottery tickets will continue.

But the story does not end here. From the gambler’s point of view, there is a major problem with betting in the China Sports Lottery: the payouts are low. The dedicated gambler is therefore provided with an incentive to seek a higher return. This higher return is offered by unauthorized online gambling websites. Take an example: a 100 RBM bet on Croatia to win its first game in the World Cup through the official sports lottery would have paid out about 8 RMB; the same bet made through an overseas online gambling site would have paid out about 60 RMB.

The Chinese bettor is therefore obviously attracted to betting on the foreign site. The only problem is that the site is illegal in China. It is illegal to access the site from China, it is illegal to send funds to the site from China and it is illegal to receive funds from the site in China. The PRC government has the technical ability to enforce these rules. Using the great firewall, access to foreign gambling sites can be blocked. Domestic websites that provide access to the foreign sites can be located and shut down. The major search engines like Baidu and Sina can be instructed to filters search terms that allow Chinese residents to find gambling sites. Banks and online payment services can be instructed to deny all payments to gambling sites and to refuse to accept payments from gambling sites.

Even though all these techniques of control are possible, during the World Cup Chinese citizens found that they had almost completely open access to wagering on the World Cup. Access to foreign online gambling sites entirely focused on Chinese citizens was entirely open. While specific numbers are not known, it is generally understood that the amount of betting on the World Cup by Chinese citizens on foreign sites actually dwarfed the amount legally wagered on the World Cup through the China Sports Lottery.

So how does a Chinese citizen make a bet through a foreign online gambling site? First, the Chinese gambler has to find a betting site written in Chinese and focused on Mainland Chinese bettors. Serious gamblers will learn the names of the most popular sites through the Chinese online forums dedicated to gambling. For newbies, a search on a Chinese search engine will result in hundreds of hits for online gambling sites. Normally, the potential better will be led to what is known as a portal site listing hundreds of online gambling sites. Normally, the potential bettor will be led to what is known as a portal site listing hundreds of online gambling sites. One click on the portal listing and the gambler will access the site of choice. Several sites have become overwhelmingly popular in China.

After the bettor finds a site, the next issue is determining how to place the bet. The RMB is not a convertible currency and gambling online is not legal. Not a problem. The site will provide clear instructions to the bettor on how to proceed. The system is simple and direct. The site will provide a list of online payment service providers (PSP) that have been approved to work with the site. The customer contacts his preferred service provider and sets up an account. The betting accounts normally require payment of a minimum deposit the customer will normally fund the account using a standard Chinese bank issued debit card. The deposit is made in RMB and the PSP handles the conversion into foreign currency, payment to the online gambling website and collection and payout of winnings.

The website is accessed in China with all communication in Chinese. For the major sites, there is a Chinese speaking voice operator available 24 hours a day. Payments are made and payouts are received in RMB, collection and bank processing are all handled online by an experienced operator, relieving the bettor of any need to discuss the process with bank personnel. A certain amount of fraud protection is provided by the PSP. Where the website is located in a country in which gambling is legal and supervised, there is even more protection from fraud.

The only issue is that the entire program is illegal under Chinese law. So far, the illegality does not seem to have had an impact on the business. Websites are adept at dealing with being blocked by operating with a large list of revolving URLs. PSP’s come and go using the same revolving URL technique. Chinese banks are desperate for deposits and processing fees and therefore cooperate with the PSP’s in ways that are difficult or impossible for the government regulators to monitor. Individual gamblers are prosecuted only when they have committed some other crime such as embezzlement of the funds used to fund their gambling addiction.

The World Cup has not introduced online gambling to China. Both legal domestic and illegal foreign online gambling were already well established. The effect of the tremendous publicity surrounding the World Cup instead introduced huge sectors of the Chinese public to online gambling. The support of online gambling on football provided by the China Sports Lottery convinced the Chinese public that online gambling is a safe form of amusement. The danger of this is that in the pursuit of higher returns the Chinese public will gravitate towards online gambling sites that are illegal in the country. This type of site is not regulated or supervised in any way and is often in the control of criminal organizations.

Reports are now coming out of China about deceptive practices arising from such sites that are typically based in SE Asia. Legal and social issues arising from gambling on such sites may cause the Chinese government to take more aggressive actions against illegal online gambling. The current anti-corruption drive in china focuses on control of overseas gambling, which also may lead to an additional push for regulation. For this reason, though the business is now thriving, there is no certainty about its future in China.

Over 7,000 Chinese officials punished for gambling offenses

China’s attempts to crackdown on illegal gambling activities has resulted in thousands of government officials getting punished for offenses related to illegal gambling since the belt-tightening began in the middle of last year.

The Shanghai Daily quoted a central government reporting that 7,162 officials were punished for their involvement in illegal gambling activities from more than 30 cities and provinces in China. Of these locations, the Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces reported the most cases with the former accounting for 1,575 cases and the latter having 1,127 cases. No details were released on the severity of the punishments but reports suggested that officials were given anywhere from warnings to administrative punishments.

The report puts weight on separate incidents wherein Chinese government officials made headlines in the past for their gambling foibles, including officials who were alleged to have taken bribes “by being allowed to win” at mahjong by gambling owners. In China, it’s a common practice, especially in the Guizhou province, as a way of winning “favors” and preferential treatment for potential business dealings in the future.

Back in May, a deputy director from Liuzhou’s social security management office was also arrested over allegations that he pocketed 3 million yuan in public funds just to pay off his losing bets on soccer. A similar case was also reported in Guangxi’s Liangjiang Town wherein Finance Office Director Lu Shengle allegedly siphoned off 3.23 million in government money to pay his own gambling debts.

Then there’s the case in Fotang Town in Zhejiang’s Yiwu City where a village official is currently under investigation over allegations that he has more than 4 million yuan in debts in Macau, following a suicide attempt in late September.

All these punishments of government officials has come at a time when the country has aggressively pushed its anti-corruption campaign. Since gambling is illegal anywhere in China except Macau, government officials who have engaged in illegal gambling in the past are now being put on blast, front and center, to answer for their alleged misgivings.

Bet365 accused of profiteering in Chinese online market

Bet365, the Stoke-based bookmaker whose adverts are fronted by the actor Ray Winstone, has grown into one of the world’s largest online gambling businesses, helped by Chinese punters, who risk prison terms by betting via the group’s website.

The company – which is also known in Britain for funding the Premier League football team Stoke City and for making large donations to the Labour party – has seen a boom in its online betting operations. They are almost three times the size of the internet division of William Hill and more than seven times larger than the online business run by Ladbrokes, as turnover has grown by 78% over the past two years.

However, documents seen by the Guardian, interviews conducted with former and current bet365 employees, Freedom of Information requests made to the UK’s Gambling Commission and an analysis of foreign-language media reports all appear to confirm industry suspicions that the company – which has no physical presence or assets in China – operates one of the most successful online gambling services that can be accessed from inside the country.

China is one of the world’s largest online gambling markets despite the government having outlawed betting in all but a few controlled scenarios. The gambling group says its legal advice is that it has broken no law by taking bets from the country. The Guardian’s evidence suggests that:

• Chinese citizens have been detained for interacting with online betting firms, including four bet365 customers in Jiangxi province arrested after gambling on the group’s website, while two men in Zhejiang were jailed for promoting bet365 on their blogs, according to local media reports.

• Bet365 frequently changes its website addresses in China, thereby side-stepping attempts by local regulators to close sites down.

• The bookmaker has created a large call centre in Stoke staffed by Chinese-speaking workers.

• The company has constructed a complex payments system that allows it to take bets placed using China’s currency, the renminbi.

The Guardian has established that only about half of the £1.3bn the company won from gamblers in 2013 came from countries where bet365 possessed a licence to operate.

While that statistic does not imply the remainder was won from markets with legal restrictions on online gambling, industry analysts say a sizeable portion of the winnings must come from Asia, and principally China.

Bet365’s publicly listed rivals – William Hill, Ladbrokes, Betfair and Paddy Power – all say they do not take online bets from the country.

One former bet365 employee, who confirmed that the company was one of the larger online gambling operators accessible from China, said: “There’s nothing the Chinese government can do about it, other than block the sites, which they do. A lot Chinese[-facing] bookmakers change their domain names on a regular basis.”

Meanwhile, a current bet365 employee confirmed it was “100% true” that bet365 altered website addresses to allow Chinese punters to keep betting when authorities shut down sites. The bet365 sites in question use obscure domain names such as www.28365365.com in their often brief lifespan. He added: “I would say there are 50 [bet365 call centre] advisers just to follow the Chinese customers. China is the biggest department apart from the English [speaking] one”.

The company declined to respond in detail to a series of questions posed to it by the Guardian. In a statement, it said: “Bet365 takes its legal and regulatory obligations very seriously and is licensed to undertake its activities by relevant regulatory authorities across a variety of jurisdictions and is compliant with all applicable legislation.

“There is no legislation that expressly prohibits the supply of remote gambling services into China by operators who are based outside China. Bet365 has no people, assets or infrastructure in China and does not engage any agents, aggregators or intermediaries, for any purpose, in China.

“In the view of bet365, and its lawyers, Chinese law does not extend to the provision of services into China by gambling operators and service providers who themselves have no nexus with the territory. Any allegation of illegality on the part of bet365 is therefore untrue.”

The company added that it does not receive “renminbi from payment processors or otherwise”, and said it was unaware of “anyone in China being prosecuted for using its services”. It also said that in the Jiangxi case – where four bet365 customers were arrested in 2011 – it was “likely” that it had been the victim of a fraud, while in response to reports of two men being jailed in Zhejiang, it said it is the “responsibility of affiliates [who are paid by bet365 for introducing customers] to assess the legal implications”.

In 2005, China published judicial interpretations relating to the existing article 303 of its criminal law, which already stated: “That whoever, for the purpose of reaping profits, assembles a crowd to engage in gambling, opens a gambling house or makes an occupation of gambling is to be sentenced to not more than three years of fixed-term imprisonment, criminal detention or control, in addition to a fine”.

The interpretation added that “whoever, for the purpose of reaping profits, sets up gambling websites on the internet or acts as an online gambling agent will be regarded as ‘opening gambling houses’ and will be punished according to article 303 of the criminal law”.

The interpretation of the law has led many within the gambling industry to take the view that this applies to websites located outside China as well as within, and to avoid China as a market.

Michael Tan, senior counsel based in Shanghai at the international law firm Taylor Wessing, said: “From the perspective of Chinese law, [gambling] is illegal and a criminal offence. However, it is hardly enforceable since the betting company might be beyond the jurisdiction of China. So far China does not have treaties with most western countries, and to extradite is difficult in practice”.

Regulus Partners, a gambling industry consultancy firm, said there was very little visibility as to the true size of the Chinese betting market. However, it estimates that the Chinese market generates annual winnings for bookmakers of about £13.9bn – of which about £3bn are placed directly with gambling websites and the rest via third parties who collect bets on the ground and then pass the bets on to bookmakers. On those figures, a 3% share of the Chinese market, for instance, would provide a gambling company with annual winnings of around £400m.

The Guardian’s analysis of bet365’s revenue streams comes as the UK gambling industry began a new regulatory regime on 1 October, whereby operators pay a licence fee to the Gambling Commission in order to operate in the UK.

Under the new UK licensing regime, operators deriving more than 3% of revenues from distinct international markets must disclose details of those businesses to the regulator, and provide a legal opinion justifying operations in those foreign markets.

The bookmaker said: “Bet365 Group entities have applied for continuation rights as required by the [new UK] licensing regime and, when doing so, shared with the Gambling Commission the legal bases underpinning the business derived from all the group’s material markets”.

Betting companies will also need a licence if they want to advertise on Premier League shirts and in football stadiums, an activity that has surged in recent seasons as English football games are broadcast around the world.

Separately, the Stoke-based bookmaker announced on Monday that it would be relocating its international betting businesses from Britain to Gibraltar, operating under licences granted by the government of Gibraltar and making the company the last of the big UK betting companies to move offshore. The firm’s gaming business has operated from Gibraltar since 2007.

Apart from its online gambling business, bet365 Group also owns Stoke City, and has covered losses at the club to the tune of £49m over the past four years. Its logo is seen all over the world each weekend as it is the sponsor of the team’s jerseys.

As well as supporting the local football team, the company and its subsidiaries also gave £330,000 to the Labour Party between 2007 and 2010, according to Electoral Commission records.

Peter Coates, the Stoke City chairman, co-owner of bet365 and father of the business’s founder, Denise, has personally donated £160,000 between 2004 and 2012.

Venetian Macau suing two Chinese gamblers

Sheldon Adelson’s Venetian Macau took legal action in a Hong Kong court this week to recover approximately $4.5m (£2.8m), against two of its former high roller customers from China.

In one lawsuit, filed on Wednesday with Hong Kong’s high court, the Venetian is trying to recover $3m from Zou Yunyu, who once featured on lists of China’s richest people and has an estimated $220m fortune from her company, the Shanghai Gaoyuan Property Group.

In the second case, the Venetian is pursuing $1.5m from Xie Xiaoqing, a businessman and deputy to the provincial legislature in Hubei province, according to Hong Kong media.

The Venetian is one of four casinos owned by the Chinese arm of Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. Adelson’s fortune is valued at over $20bn and his interests span gaming empires in Nevada and Asia, the Israeli newspaper market and Republican politics in the US. In the 2012 elections, he and his wife, Miriam, donated $95m to Republican candidates, including a massive late surge of $33m to pro-Romney political committees.

Macau’s rise to the top of the casino market has been powered by wealthy mainland Chinese gamblers, but the lawsuits highlight the difficulties in collecting debts if they return to the mainland, where gambling is illegal and debts aren’t recognised by courts. Both Macau and nearby Hong Kong have separate legal systems from mainland China.

Chinese former FA officials hauled in over betting scandal

China said Sunday it had formally launched investigations of three more former football officials including the ex-head of the Chinese Football Association in a widening gambling and match-fixing probe.

Authorities were investigating former CFA chief Xie Yalong, the national team's ex-manager Wei Shaohui, and Li Dongsheng, the former director of Chinese soccer's referee committee, the police ministry said in a statement.

State media had previously reported the three men had been taken into custody for questioning, but there had been no official confirmation.

China's professional leagues have been plagued with allegations of gambling, match-fixing and crooked referees for years.

That, coupled with the national side's poor performances, have long made the "beautiful game" a source of disappointment for diehard fans.

The ministry statement gave no details on any specific allegations against the men.

Early this year, the scandal exploded when Xie's successor Nan Yong and two of his top lieutenants at the CFA were arrested on bribe-taking and match-fixing charges. Scores of officials and referees have been detained.

State press reports had said Xie was taken earlier this month to the northeastern city of Shenyang, where the investigation is based, to be interrogated on his ties with Nan and his top aides.

The trials of Nan, former CFA vice head Yang Yimin and one-time head of CFA refereeing Zhang Jianqiang could be imminent as prosecutors have already handed over investigation documents to the courts, state media have reported.

Numerous reports had said Xie was unlikely to be implicated in the scandal.
A CFA spokesman could not be reached for comment by AFP.

Xie, a football outsider, served as CFA head from 2005-2009, when Nan oversaw the national team and professional league.

Xie had been tasked with cleaning up the professional league and bringing the national side back to prominence – tasks that largely went unfulfilled. He was replaced in 2009 by Nan, to the applause of the sporting press.

Nan served as CFA head for less than a year before he was arrested, reportedly for crimes that began early in his tenure at the association.

China plans online gambling crackdown

China’s Ministry of Public Security has just announced plans to crack down on the country’s internet gambling industry. The attack will be made on two fronts: on one side, unlicensed gambling sites will be perused; on the other, the Ministry will go after underground banks which help players fund their online accounts.

The operation will begin already this month and is expected to continue through August. The crackdown comes after lengthy discussions that included input from the Supreme Court, the Propaganda bureau, the Central Bank and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

According to Chinese gambling laws, most forms of gambling are illegal, and have been for more than fifty years. Two exactions to the rule are both state-operated lotteries. Despite this ban, online casinos in China are prolific, while underground gambling dens fill the back streets of the country’s metropolitan areas.

The main targets of the crackdown operation will be illegal banks and unlicensed payment processors that have been created to help players fund their online gambling accounts. These underground money transfer services only work with locally-operated gambling sites. The government still needs to find a way to contend with foreign-operated sites that target Chinese players.

Other targets include unlicensed gambling operators. The Ministry of Public Safety released a statement about their plans, and it seems they will be ruthless, with mentions of arrests and “severe punishment” setting the tone.

It is important to note that the crackdown does not target players. Only gambling operators and institutions which assist them are being investigated and shut down. More importantly, while the Chinese government goes after local sites, they have no legal jurisdiction over sites hosted in other countries, so Chinese players will very likely continue to use them.

Match fixing scandals plague China’s domestic league

In the latest blow to the world of Chinese football, three high-ranking officials in the Chinese Football Association (CFA) have been detained under suspicion of being involved in match-fixing. The arrests represent a goal on the part of a recent high-profile campaign to clean up the nation’s football leagues and to stop recent trends of match fixing and illegal sports gambling.

Chinese gambling laws have not changed much since 1949, when most forms of gambling in the country were made illegal. Today, a limited sports lottery represents the extent of ‘official’ sports betting in the country. Even though this lottery sees annual profits in excess of $1 billion, this pales in comparison to the amount of money exchanged through underground sports betting operations, and through online sportsbooks in China.

The officials who were detained are Nan Yong and Yang Yimin, both vice-presidents of the Chinese Football Association (CFA), and Zhang Jianqiang, who was in charge of referee assignments. These detentions occurred on the tail of two others last week: Jia Xiuquan, former head coach of the national Olympic team, and Shanghai Shenhua of the Chinese Super League (CSL) are also being questioned by police.

Unfortunately, the problems with Chinese football go beyond match fixing. Nan, one of the men detained, is also accused of using his connections to pick host cities for international matches that offer good “connections” for him and his associates. Nan is also thought to be involved in some kind of deal with former sponsor Iphox, a British company that pledged 50 million yuan ($7.3 million). Iphox has yet to pay, and Nan, though responsible for the contract, has yet to go after the money.

Some believe that nothing short of a complete restructuring of CFA management can save Chinese football. This might be just what is happening here. While this kind of “house cleaning” won’t necessarily end the problems with internet betting in China, it seems like a good enough place to start.

China online game investor-ban adds new hurdle for operators

China has banned foreign investment in its online gaming industry in a tightening of its censorship regime and an effort to protect local gaming companies.

Foreigners would be banned from operating online gaming within China through wholly foreign-owned investments, joint ventures or any other forms of co-operation with local companies, the country’s publishing regulator said.

The notice put up on the website of the General Administration of Press and Publication on Saturday is the latest of Beijing’s steps this year to tighten control over China’s booming virtual worlds.

Earlier this year, GAPP announced that online games could only be launched after it had approved them, adding to the risk in marketing products that can take years to develop.

When Netease, one of the country’s leading internet portals, won the licence formerly held by The9, a smaller gaming operator, to operate Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in China, the government delayed approval for the company’s co-operation with Blizzard.

Revenues in China’s online gaming market are expected to grow by up to half this year to Rmb27bn according to GAPP. The industry is dominated by domestic companies such as Tencent, Changyou, Shanda – which launched its shares on Nasdaq in September – Netease and The9.

However, many of them still make a large part of their revenues from foreign-developed games, for which they have to pay royalties. World of Warcraft is China’s most popular game on the web.

“The cost for developing new games is rising exponentially, and many Chinese online gaming companies face the threat that they can no longer afford to develop games and will see themselves forced into agreements to distribute foreign games,” said Edward Yu, head of Analysys, a Beijing-based research firm. “Partly, this new policy is an attempt to protect local gaming companies.”

Analysts said the move was unlikely to lock foreign online gaming companies out of the market because GAPP is only one of several regulators. The Ministry of Culture and the Ministry for Industry and Information Technology also have a stake in regulating online industries and could take different views, especially as GAPP’s move increases the publishing agency’s powers versus the other regulators.

“But things are getting ever more difficult,” Mr Yu said.

GAPP said updates and new versions of already-approved games would need additional approval. It also said games that were already on the market in China would need new approval if they changed distributors.