CHINA, NATIONAL, SOCIETY, Commentray: Should China Legalize Gambling?
By Liu Yeqing
According to statistics recently released, each year about 600 billion RMB flows to overseas casinos and horseracing games as well as those in Hong Kong and Macao.
Some scholars feel obliged to take measures to put an end to the money flow and one solution is to legalize gambling in Mainland China. However, opinions are widely divided over legalization.
Scholars on one side hold the opinion that we should remove the barrier of legalization and better restrict and supervise the gambling industry.
In the middle of December 2004, Wang Zengxian, a researcher with China Commonweal Lottery Research School of Beijing University, suggested implicitly in a proseminar that the gambling business in China should open up step by step. It was also Mr. Wang who released the 600 billion figure.
During the proseminar titled Gambling Industry and Commonweal Courses, Mr. Wang also pointed out that due to the ban on gambling and horseracing in Mainland China, the surrounding areas are dotted by casinos. Many Chinese travelers include visits to gambling houses in their agendas during cross-border journeys. The existence of this problem has directly exerted a negative influence on our domestic economic prosperity and the well being of commonweal courses. To make things even worse, in the meantime illegal gambling already runs rampant in Mainland China.
During the same proseminar, Jia Kang, chief of the national Ministry of Finance also agreed with Mr. Wang and said: "[with] a market economy, we have to face the reality and for the moment legalization will be an effective solution."
However, their remarks have aroused furious disputes. Considering the threat from foreign gambling interests, some scholars doubt that legalizing gambling in China is an ideal solution.
Doctor Lu Jianhua of the Academy of Social Science of China brings up four doubts regarding the legalization of gambling in Mainland China.
Firstly, if we legalize gambling, will those professional and amateur gamblers be as regulated as we would expect? A survey conducted in early 1997 showed that the amount of gambling money flowing overseas had reached 400 billion each year (the traveling and boarding fees were included as well). At that time, most of the cross-border travelers were from Beijing, the Zhejiang Delta and Yangtze Delta areas. These travelers were gamblers instead of common travelers. It's really doubtful whether we can recoup the 600 billion totally and insure the taxing of the industry after its legalization.
The second doubt is whether the positive impact will overshadow the negative impact? In many cases professional gamblers collaborate with criminal syndicates. Will legalization wipe out the illegal activities completely, such as dominating casinos and the trafficking in drugs with gambling money? For the common people, gambling is only an avocation. But once their avocation gets out of control, some will ask for loans or sell off their family properties to continue gambling. And once such runaway gambling occurs, it will spark other negative chain effects. The silver lining of legalization is that it will create more opportunities for employment. But will the government be capable of supervising the business?
The third doubt is to what extent we should control the gambling industry. After legalization, at the very least we should verify identities. But this is only an idealized model, not yet practical. If we cannot identify gamblers, we cannot control the business effectively.
The fourth doubt is how to start? We have neither the necessary means nor experience in this field. At present, the only forms of legal lotteries in Mainland China are welfare lotteries and sports lotteries. The knowledge we have acquired of the business is quite limited.
Since 1987, when the State Department granted the Civil Administration Ministry permission to emit welfare lottery, gambling has been legalized in part. What we are facing now is a further opening-up of the industry, which means legalizing the gambling games that already exist in our country. Also, the extent to which we adopt new games while finding effective ways to supervise and control the business should be of the utmost concern to us at the moment.
Some other experts also supported the latter by pointing out that legalization of gambling does more harm than good to our society. It will undermine the stability of our society, decay social morals and affect production activities. Legalization of gambling will inevitably involve more people entering into the business, which will probably cause serious problems for individuals, families and overall social security, for example, anxiety, insomnia, heart attacks, suicide, divorce, bankruptcy, sloth, corruption, violence and the thriving of criminal syndicates.
The profits produced by the gambling industry are not created by substantial productive activities. Perhaps one city can prosper from the business, but the special rule cannot be applied to the whole country. All in all, gambling is a cancer on society and should not be legalized in China in the near future.
To its credit, the central government hasn't made any moves towards the legalization of gambling.
According to statistics recently released, each year about 600 billion RMB flows to overseas casinos and horseracing games as well as those in Hong Kong and Macao.
Some scholars feel obliged to take measures to put an end to the money flow and one solution is to legalize gambling in Mainland China. However, opinions are widely divided over legalization.
Scholars on one side hold the opinion that we should remove the barrier of legalization and better restrict and supervise the gambling industry.
In the middle of December 2004, Wang Zengxian, a researcher with China Commonweal Lottery Research School of Beijing University, suggested implicitly in a proseminar that the gambling business in China should open up step by step. It was also Mr. Wang who released the 600 billion figure.
During the proseminar titled Gambling Industry and Commonweal Courses, Mr. Wang also pointed out that due to the ban on gambling and horseracing in Mainland China, the surrounding areas are dotted by casinos. Many Chinese travelers include visits to gambling houses in their agendas during cross-border journeys. The existence of this problem has directly exerted a negative influence on our domestic economic prosperity and the well being of commonweal courses. To make things even worse, in the meantime illegal gambling already runs rampant in Mainland China.
During the same proseminar, Jia Kang, chief of the national Ministry of Finance also agreed with Mr. Wang and said: "[with] a market economy, we have to face the reality and for the moment legalization will be an effective solution."
However, their remarks have aroused furious disputes. Considering the threat from foreign gambling interests, some scholars doubt that legalizing gambling in China is an ideal solution.
Doctor Lu Jianhua of the Academy of Social Science of China brings up four doubts regarding the legalization of gambling in Mainland China.
Firstly, if we legalize gambling, will those professional and amateur gamblers be as regulated as we would expect? A survey conducted in early 1997 showed that the amount of gambling money flowing overseas had reached 400 billion each year (the traveling and boarding fees were included as well). At that time, most of the cross-border travelers were from Beijing, the Zhejiang Delta and Yangtze Delta areas. These travelers were gamblers instead of common travelers. It's really doubtful whether we can recoup the 600 billion totally and insure the taxing of the industry after its legalization.
The second doubt is whether the positive impact will overshadow the negative impact? In many cases professional gamblers collaborate with criminal syndicates. Will legalization wipe out the illegal activities completely, such as dominating casinos and the trafficking in drugs with gambling money? For the common people, gambling is only an avocation. But once their avocation gets out of control, some will ask for loans or sell off their family properties to continue gambling. And once such runaway gambling occurs, it will spark other negative chain effects. The silver lining of legalization is that it will create more opportunities for employment. But will the government be capable of supervising the business?
The third doubt is to what extent we should control the gambling industry. After legalization, at the very least we should verify identities. But this is only an idealized model, not yet practical. If we cannot identify gamblers, we cannot control the business effectively.
The fourth doubt is how to start? We have neither the necessary means nor experience in this field. At present, the only forms of legal lotteries in Mainland China are welfare lotteries and sports lotteries. The knowledge we have acquired of the business is quite limited.
Since 1987, when the State Department granted the Civil Administration Ministry permission to emit welfare lottery, gambling has been legalized in part. What we are facing now is a further opening-up of the industry, which means legalizing the gambling games that already exist in our country. Also, the extent to which we adopt new games while finding effective ways to supervise and control the business should be of the utmost concern to us at the moment.
Some other experts also supported the latter by pointing out that legalization of gambling does more harm than good to our society. It will undermine the stability of our society, decay social morals and affect production activities. Legalization of gambling will inevitably involve more people entering into the business, which will probably cause serious problems for individuals, families and overall social security, for example, anxiety, insomnia, heart attacks, suicide, divorce, bankruptcy, sloth, corruption, violence and the thriving of criminal syndicates.
The profits produced by the gambling industry are not created by substantial productive activities. Perhaps one city can prosper from the business, but the special rule cannot be applied to the whole country. All in all, gambling is a cancer on society and should not be legalized in China in the near future.
To its credit, the central government hasn't made any moves towards the legalization of gambling.
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