Sometimes I feel like a broken record: Yet again (or more accurately, still), the Chinese government is cracking down on Internet activity that they feel violates their “cultural standards.” As usual, that includes online gambling.

The Chinese State Council Information Office is cracking down on websites they don’t like and have shut down more than 60,000 so far, with another 1,700 websites still under investigation. People caught using or operating the illegal online casinos are being punished by sentences of up to five years, usually prison terms that mandate hard labor.

According to the Chinese government, taking control of unsavory websites is necessary to protect China’s helpless citizens from security issues, viruses and more. That seems likely, because I doubt a Chinese person is capable of learning which websites they want to visit and which they want to avoid. Things such as not sharing your personal information with sites you don’t trust, something everyone else takes for granted, are apparently too difficult for the Chinese to learn.

Wang Chen, the Minister for the Information Office, was kind enough to clear things up and let us know why such a crackdown on internet activity is so important. According to him, aside from the safety issues already mentioned, it’s necessary to “improve the cultural environment on the Internet.”

Some might argue that the government blocking citizens from searching for information on Liu Xiaobo doesn’t improve the cultural environment on the Internet, but they’re wrong. There’s something barbaric and unsavory about letting people read about a Nobel Prize-winning human rights advocate, so the Chinese government is right to protect people from that terrible information. Why, reading up on human rights is even more dangerous than gambling. After all, feeling strongly about blackjack won’t get you run over by a tank.

Clearly, human rights knowledge is very dangerous, so China is right to protect people from it. After all, if you’re ignorant, you won’t get too riled up and the government won’t have to kill or imprison you. They also need to shut down online casinos because if you play there you could lose money (of course, you could also win money). Worse yet, if caught playing at the casino, you would face imprisonment. So the government needs to shut down the website to protect you from that temptation! What a benevolent government! I don’t know why people say such bad things about these nice Communists.

By the way, this website is banned in China, so at least the citizens don’t have to worry about stumbling upon my blogs.

All year long China’s oppressive communist government has been cracking down on gambling, both online and offline. Now they are taking an extra step by redefining what and who they can punish. According to Xinhua News, China’s state-run newspaper, a new document released jointly by the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security redefines internet gambling in an attempt to avoid any ambiguity.

The new law defines those who are guilty of “establishing or running a gambling house” and allows the red government to sentence the guilty parties to up to 10 years in prison as well as levy stiff fines. Under the new law, you are guilty of establishing or running a gambling house if you establish a gambling website in mainland China, establish a gambling website overseas that serves Chinese customers, establish a gambling website and provide it to others to organize gambling, act as an agent for the gambling website and take bets or share profits with gambling websites.

That last one is the biggest change. Under the new law, any business partner of online gambling websites could potentially be violating Chinese criminal law. I’m pretty sure if I ever visited China I could be arrested under this new law, which is one of many reasons I never plan to visit China.

Though the law is new, the crackdown on online gambling is not. Though never a fan of freedom, this year China decided to place a new emphasis on making sure people are not able to spend their own money on casino games, so they have gone after sports betting and online gambling operations with a new vigor.

Since beginning the new crackdown in January, China has arrested or detained more than 7,360 people and frozen nearly 1 billion yuan (equal to $148 million USD). The Ministry of Public Security states that they have dealt with 1,364 cases involving online gambling and broken up more than 130 “gangs” connected to offshore online gambling companies.

Oh, those crazy Chinese are at it again. We know that the Communist Chinese government isn’t too high on freedom, including a free flow of information or the ability for people to do what they want with their money. Come to think of it, in China it’s not really your money, is it?

Anyway, those zany folk in Beijing have stated that there will be a crackdown on what they call “overseas hostile forces.” Of course, in China, you are seen as being a hostile force if you are anything other than the Chinese government, which means that everything overseas is automatically hostile.

In Red China, there is actually a department in the government called the Information Office. It is that office that controls what information the people are given and is responsible for telling the people what they want to be known and hiding what they don’t want to be known. So, in that way it’s a lot like Obama’s relationship with the New York Times.

Anyway, Wang Chen (no, I didn’t make up that name) is the chief of the Information Office and he released a statement saying that China “will strengthen the blocking for harmful information from outside China to prevent harmful information from being disseminated in China and withstand online penetration by overseas hostile forces.”

Allow me to translate that from propaganda to English. When China says “harmful information,” what they mean is any information that doesn’t match the official information released by the Information Office. For example, information about freedom, democracy, protests, ownership, property, and human rights would be considered “harmful” information that needs to be kept from the people. Such information is currently being blocked from the Internet in China, but there are always ways around that censorship, which is why they need to crack down.

How this relates to online gambling is that in China’s mainland, gambling is illegal. That includes online gambling. However, there are many online casinos from overseas that currently accept Chinese customers. Online gambling is another thing that is considered harmful by the Chinese government, because it is a way for the Chinese citizens to spend money on something that is not provided by the government.

In response to this statement, many online casinos that were accepting bets from Chinese customers have stopped. Some have delayed deposits and withdrawals from China. Some online casinos have warned Chinese customers that the government may be monitoring their transactions.

So for any Chinese online gamblers, I’m sorry to say that you may soon be out of options for casinos. Of course, I’m also sorry to say that you live in China, don’t have freedom, and may soon be arrested and taken to a secret prison for the “crime” of reading this article.

Just so we’re clear, here’s a list of things that China does and doesn’t like. This is not a comprehensive list.

Chinese government likes: communism, controlling all aspects of the lives of its citizens, manufacturing products and selling them to America, running over protesters with tanks, executing political adversaries and starving millions of people to death.

Chinese government dislikes: freedom, democracy, truth, Google, privacy, religion, public gatherings, private property, self-sufficiency and online gambling.