After incurring a series of court trials, the decision to imprison Gu Lianbao
for two-and-a-half years, as well as pay 30,000 yen in fines for operating an
illegal online betting site in China was upheld. Beginning in October '05,
Gu will begin to serve his sentence, which was originally passed by the Beijing
Xicheng District People's Court.
In late 2004, Beijing Police began to concentrate efforts to stop Chinese
citizens from gambling at what they thought were the best online casinos and
sportsbooks. This task force included investigations on those who were
operating online casino gambling websites, as well as those who were gambling at
online casinos.
Hundreds of arrests were made as a result, with several illegal gambling
rings being brought down in the process. By December, plice were hot on
the case Lianbao, whose online casino website handled a total of 600 million yen
(equivalent to $74 million). It seems that Lianbao was keeping detailed
financial records, but could not say just how many online gamblers used his
website to place bets.
Although Lianbao's sentence weems harsh to those who gamble at online casinos
in legalized jurisdictions, his wentence could have been much more severe if
Lianbao did not plead guilty to the charges.