China decides to establish new platform for online gambling whistleblowers

China is the first country to take the hit of the novel COVID-19 virus outbreak. The visor was discovered in Wuhan, China officially on the 8th of December. Due to the high contagiousness of the virus, many cities in China were isolated and locked down. Thus, almost every non-essential business was shut down temporarily as well. 

Macau, one of the most important cities in the whole country, in other words, the capital of gambling in the Asian region was also locked down for 15 days. This was an unprecedented case when all 42 casinos in Macau in the city were closed. The history can not recall any similar situations within the last centuries. 

The decision was very hard to take, but the gambling industry in China had already lost a lot by that period. Thus, the government was forced to do so and shut down the casinos. Already after the Chinese New Year the gambling industry, which was supposed to bring the revenue of more than 90% to the province, was stuck and frozen. The loss of millions of dollars was inevitable for the Chinese gambling industry. 

The decision was made after the virus was announced as an epidemic and thus, due to the safety of the customers, all public and gathering spots were supposed to shut. The first on the list was of course casinos. Thus, many experts and many people involved in the gambling industry initiated the allowing of online gambling which is very strictly prohibited by the Chinese government. 

Many experts conceived the celebration of the online gambling industry as the main tool for surviving the whole gambling industry in the country. Though, the governmental officials decided to decline the offer. Moreover, it was officially announced last Friday that the local authorities decided to make the online gambling whistleblowing platform. 

China establishing a new platform 

It is not a very familiar case for modern society to create online gambling whistleblowing platforms. Usually, local authorities are in charge of regulating the market, though the Chinese government took another approach. According to the new initiative, China is threatening to severely hit online gambling operators during the global pandemic of COVID-19, while also offering heavy financial; awards to those individuals who uncover the operators. 

Due to the fact that online gambling is prohibited in the country, during the massive lockdown the citizens addressed many foreign online casino operators, who are performing in the Chinese market illegally. Thus, many people have spent a lot of money while playing with illegal operators. This mainly happened as many people could not really find any relief in the classic brick and mortar casinos. 

The Minister of Public Security of China issued a six-point “Notice on Strictly Combating Cross-Border Gambling and Telecommunications Network Fraud During the New Crown Pneumonia Epidemic”. The document is the representation of the above-described plan. 

The notice claims that online operators based outside the country have “increased their gambling efforts against Chinese citizens” during the pandemic, making the harm caused “more prominent” and requiring the Ministry to take extra measures to “safeguard the economic and social order.”

The new measures are basically similar to a notice the Ministry issued six weeks ago. The previous notice called for the creation of a “‘blacklist’ system for participating in gambling and employees and overseas tourist destinations,” as well as strengthening methods of detecting and cutting off online gambling payment processing.

Notwithstanding, one new wrinkle includes welcoming citizens to “effectively report and uncover related illicit and criminal acts.” Should pieces of information provided by Chinese residents assume a significant job in obliterating the actors of the uber gangs and taking out the packs of the extreme wrongdoing, the open security organ will give a substantial honor and ensure the individual data and wellbeing of the informant.

On the other side, the inability to report any of the illicit nine gambling operators in the local market, or even to provide any assistance that allows online gambling operators to conceal their activity, will cause the sky to drop on those whose lips remain sealed. 

The vice-minister Wang Xiaohong held a special meeting with the whole Ministry. The meeting was held on Friday last week and focused on topics such as promoting the enhanced crackdown. One of the topics that remained on the top shelf was the discussion and speeding up of the reporting platform construction and launch. Thus, suggesting that the government was planning dedicated digital banking channels through which whistleblowers could submit their tips.

Online Gambling Brings a Lot of Harm 

The annual Internet Payment Security Survey reports were published earlier last month by the China UnionPay. The document was released back in 2019 and includes all the information regarding mobile internet users and their operation data. The information came to an extreme hand in terms of online gambling. The reporters were able to identify the online gambling scam among the expenses and transactions of the mobile internet users. 

The survey indicates that the averaged China Mobile user makes more than three-digit transactions on a daily basis. Over 51% of users said they come across the online scams, which is a drop of 16 points from the 2018 survey. The number of those who actually have suffered from the harm also decreased from 26 to 23%. 

The survey added that of those users who’d suffered harm from sketchy online actors, online gamblers had the highest rate of fraud and also reported the highest proportion of ‘large losses’ to the fraudsters.

Internet Protocol Another News

The common solution of switching from country to country without leaving your couch has been invented and is called the VPN or the Virtual Private Network. People all over the work use the VPN to cheat and evade authorities. Chinese residents are not accepting. Many Chinese users use VPN for online gambling purposes. Though, local authorities have come up with the solution and decided to introduce something called the New IP. The project is released via the collaboration of the Ministry of Industry and Information technology, Huawei and China Unicom and China Telecom. 

New IP reportedly includes a ‘killswitch’ algorithm that would allow a central part of the network to disconnect data arriving at or originating from a specific internet address. New IP would also require authorization and authentication of new internet addresses, effectively eliminating any hope of online anonymity. New IP development should be fully finished by the end of November. SO far this is known to be the deadline for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). Despite this fact, some members of the company have loudly expressed their opinion regarding the dystopian vision of online freedom.

China seems to be in control of every data and information regarding the citizens of the country. Last year, the government launched the mandatory facial recognition system for every mobile user. Everyone now needs to proceed through the facial recognition system in order to register a phone account. The movie was defined as the measure to protects the legitimate rights and interests of citizens in cyberspace. Though, it does not seem like those moves are all of a sudden and all in all, this is too much effort.