The Chinese government has issued a new law that would prohibit the sale of Lottery tickets over the Internet. According to a circular issued by the Ministries of Finance and Civil Affairs and the General Administration of Sports, online Lottery sales operations that commenced business before Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 - when the law went into effect - must cease operations immediately.

Telecommunication regulators, in compliance with Chinese law, will penalize any online lottery sales that take place since the new law was put into place.

Beijing University's head of the research institute of lottery, Wang Xuehong, stated that the industry has issues with both honesty and security. Online lottery ticket purchasers are not sufficiently able to tell the difference between legal and illegal online lottery sales web sites.

Wang relayed the difficulties of supervising web site behavior, saying, "It's hard to say whether a website will buy lottery tickets for the buyers after it receives money from them."

The circular stated that those who perpetuate the sale of online lottery tickets, collect monies from the sale of online lottery tickets, or purchase online lottery tickets, will be prosecuted according to the new law and its related rules.

- 2008-01-04