Chinese officials estimate annual gambling outflows at 1tn yuan

Chinese officials estimate that at least CNY1tn leaves the country each year for gambling, including betting through overseas operators, according to Liao Jinrong, director of international cooperation at the Ministry of Public Security. Liao said the outflow aggravates economic and financial risks, the ministry said. Jia Kang, a former official of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, which is attached to the Ministry of Finance, acknowledged that the amount equals about 1% of China's GDP.

Liao said criminal groups use digital currencies to collect and transfer funds, which makes it harder to trace the origin of the money and to investigate. Gambling has been illegal in mainland China since 1949, with state lotteries and the casinos of Macau and Hong Kong, which operate under their own regimes, as the only exceptions.

In 2025 China sold almost CNY628bn (about $90bn) in lottery tickets, up 0.7% on the previous year, according to the Ministry of Finance. China Sports Lottery accounted for CNY419.39bn, about two thirds of the total, and Welfare Lottery for CNY208.58bn. Official data indicate the country has more than 300 million registered bettors.

During the 2026 World Cup, sales of football lottery products reached CNY6.87bn between 8 and 14 June, up 97% on the previous week. The state offer does not meet all demand: the source says prices are less attractive, the portfolio is limited and there is no legal online casino.

Foreign sites are blocked by the Great Firewall, and the most common route around it is a virtual private network. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology began requiring government approval for all VPN services, and state telecommunications operators were ordered to act against unauthorised connections. Individual VPN users were reportedly fined for the first time in a widely reported case in Hubei province in March 2026.

China has strict capital controls and has prohibited transactions with cryptoassets since 2021, but betting networks have built parallel payment systems. According to the magazine Caixin, the scheme reaches remote regions and involves small participants, such as workers who lend or rent their bank data to criminal groups abroad, with bettors often using the Tether stablecoin USDT.

In a 2020 case in Huizhou, Guangdong province, police arrested 76 suspects accused of running a payment service that moved funds to and from 120 betting sites and fraudulent investment platforms. The network recruited about 3,000 "runners", who opened accounts and deposited money; a bettor would "buy" a non-existent product, the amount was debited from the runner's account, and the bettor then bought USDT with a bank card or Alipay to "top up" that account.

Chinese authorities estimate, that about $2bn a year passes through some of the country's largest online retail sites before reaching overseas betting operators. A bettor pays a fake retailer for goods that do not exist, and the equivalent amount is credited to their gambling account.

The Ministry of Public Security names Myanmar, the Philippines and other Asia-Pacific jurisdictions as the main destinations for the money. The Philippines was the main hub for years through Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators; Pagcor rules barred transmitting games to countries where the activity is illegal, but most POGO revenue came from players resident in China. Under Chinese pressure the sector lost strength until it was banned by the government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., with closure scheduled for the end of 2024.

Cambodia followed a similar path. In 2019 Beijing asked Cambodia and the Philippines to shut online operations aimed at Chinese citizens, and Cambodia announced it would not renew online gambling licences expiring on 31 December that year. Activity moved to areas with weaker control, such as the semi-autonomous Kokang and Myawaddy regions of Myanmar, which the source associates with online scam complexes, cyber-fraud centres and illegal casinos.

In 2021 an amendment to the Criminal Code made it a crime to open or run casinos abroad and to organise or recruit Chinese citizens to travel abroad to gamble. The government also keeps a blacklist of tourist destinations associated with gambling. This year Chen Zhi, described as a scam boss and leader of the Prince Group, was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China.

In 2024 the Ministry of Public Security dismantled more than 4,500 illegal online betting platforms, investigated 73,000 cross-border gambling cases, broke up 45 large organisations and arrested more than 11,000 suspects. During the 2026 World Cup, Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, flagged more than 400,000 accounts linked to illegal betting and permanently banned more than 90,000 for promoting clandestine sports betting. In July the ministry detailed 10 cases involving unauthorised betting operations, agents of foreign sites, individual bettors and illegal payment groups, with 29 people detained.

Because travelling abroad to gamble takes time and attracts the attention of authorities, "proxy betting" has gained ground, in which a customer communicates with headset-wearing staff positioned at baccarat tables in foreign casinos. The source says the crackdown closed doors in Asia, but the clandestine industry built to serve Chinese bettors moved to new markets, with Brazil becoming one of the main ones, where the flow has been nicknamed "Chinese bets".

According to operators in the regulated market heard by BNLData, most illegal sites serving Brazilians today belong to or are controlled by Chinese groups. The model repeats what Chinese police dismantle at home: the "Chinese bets" use personal data of Brazilians without authorisation to open bank accounts that move money from games such as "tigrinho", use CNPJs and protocol numbers of licence applications not yet analysed to simulate legality, and periodically change receiving accounts. The "runners" and disguised payment are the same mechanisms as in Huizhou, now with Pix in place of Alipay.

In the operation that arrested in May the person responsible for a network of illegal sites that used influencers to attract bettors, investigators identified a member operating from China who was taking in about $199,000 a day. The federal government estimated in June that between 41% and 51% of online betting platforms were operating illegally in Brazil.