Online gamblers and casino operators, watch out. China is coming after you. On the official website of the Ministry of Public Security, the government stated that they will “concentrate on investigating major and important cases of online gambling, knock out domestic and foreign groups that organize online gambling, and severely punish the criminal elements.”

If you’re involved in gambling in any way that relates to China and that statement doesn’t scare you, then you must not know much about the country. The Chinese government has a way of crushing all opposition and when they say phrases like “severely punish,” they mean it. This is the country that responds to protests by running over the protestors with tanks. It’s the country that controlled a population that wasn’t particularly keen on Communism by starving millions of people to death. Mao may be long gone and China may be seen as much kinder and gentler than in Mao’s day, but that’s only because anything would seem kinder and gentler in comparison.

Traditional gambling was banned in China after the Communist takeover in 1949 because the government didn’t want people to have control over their own money. If you could make and spend your own money, you are less reliant on the government. China, of course, continues to allow a state-run lottery, as is often the case in countries that ban gambling. In the absence of a legal way to gamble within Chinese borders, internet gambling has become more popular. In light of that development, China intends to go after those who gamble online as well as the financial institutions used and the online casinos who operate the games.

A fight for control of the internet is nothing new. When Google brought their popular search engine to the country, it was with the stipulation that the government controlled what information could be accessed. It has long been the policy of China, and all Communist governments for that matter, to control the flow of information, because that is the easiest way to crush an uprising.

When last year’s protests of a disputed election in Iran were publicized thanks to social networking sites like Twitter, China took note. China currently blocks the use of Twitter, Flickr, Youtube and Facebook. After Google accused the Chinese government of hacking into their Gmail service to retrieve information on human rights activists, it is likely that Google has seen the end of its days in China as well.

If you live in China, I doubt you have the ability to read this page. If you are in any way involved with online gambling in China, though, heed their warning. When China says someone will be punished, they mean business.

Gambling Review readers, meet Kris Zutis. Mr. Zutis has not yet graduated from college, but he’s already making lots of friends and enemies in the gambling world. Quite an achievement. When I was in college the only thing I had accomplished was racking up debt, constantly being drunk or hung over, and learning over 50 different meals you can make with ramen noodles. Zutis is clearly ahead of the curve.

A native of Latvia, Zutis is in his final year at Dundee University in Scotland. Zutis is an avid gambler and is even a member of poker clubs at the school. Zutis has designed a computer system for the final project for his Applied Computing degree that would detect card counters in blackjack. Yes, you read that correctly. A gambler wants to take away the only advantage  gamblers can have over the casino.

The system has already garnered a lot of attention, with Zutis being invited to the International Conference on Computer Vision Systems in Belgium to present his system to top developers across the globe. According to Zutis, the program he has developed uses a complex algorithm to track the progression of blackjack games and monitor the cards played and the bets being made. Put simply, the system counts cards the same way a player would and then determines if a player is using the same strategy. If so, it’s reasonable to assume that the player is counting cards.

Having another weapon against card counters is certainly a good thing for the casinos, and Zutis is making some friends in very high places representing the house. However, he’s not exactly popular with blackjack players at the moment. The website Blackjack Hero, a proponent of card counting, calls the inventor “hypocritical” and says they “can’t imagine anyone liking a guy who sells out to the casino’s side.”  The blog also pointed out that Zutis, an avid poker player, decided against developing a system that could affect his game of choice. Instead, he focused on blackjack.

It should be noted that Zutis’ program still needs some work before it’s ready to be unleashed in the casinos. It is just a college project, after all, but then again, so were Google, Facebook and Myspace. Also, card counting has never been possible at online casinos, so maybe someday blackjack players in brick and mortar casinos may have to deal with the same odds as online blackjack players.

Certainly Big Brother techniques, such as the eye in the sky, are already being used by casinos against gamblers and dirty dealers. One can’t blame the casinos for trying to get their hands on a program like this. However, the thought of a gambler selling out their own to make a buck just seems wrong. Every other game in the casino has a house edge that cannot be beaten by the players, but blackjack is the one game where a player who follows proper strategy and counts cards correctly actually has a chance to make money off of the house. This program would take away the only advantage the gamblers can have, meaning there would be no way for a player to make money off the casino, except of course by selling out and selling a product to the casinos that would hurt other gamblers. I guess young Mr. Zutis is a follower of the “if you can’t beat them, join them” philosophy. Such a shame.