According to Xinhua, China’s government-run news agency, the Chinese government has successfully taken down a major online gambling ring. According to their reports, last month the government broke up a highly organized and sophisticated gambling ring that has gained more than ¥100 billion ($14.8 billion).

Prior to the World Cup, China promised to crack down on illegal online gambling, which they say is a menace to society in the same way that freedom of speech and democracy are. Bets can be placed in three state-run lotteries, but all other gambling is illegal on the mainland. In addition, online gambling of any kind is strictly prohibited.

According to Xinhua, the ringleader of the online gambling ring went by the name of “Dark Brother.” He was supposedly arrested as he left a “cocaine-fuelled nightclub party” in Shenzhen. According to the oppressive communist government, who I find trustworthy and have no reason to doubt, Dark Brother led an organized gambling ring that encompassed southern and eastern China. Another member of the ring, who went by “Old Cat,” helped run the operation from her apartment.

China did not qualify for the World Cup this year, but that didn’t stop the Chinese people from betting lots of money on offshore bookmakers. In total, the Chinese Center for Lottery Studies estimates that more than ¥87 billion is spent on online gambling by Chinese citizens.

Because online gambling is so secretive, it has been hard for the government to stamp out, despite their strict controls over the internet. After the embarrassment of a fraud scandal involving Chinese soccer referees, though, the government has vowed to put an end to online betting. If any country can do it, it would be China, who is better than most at denying basic liberties.

The Advertising Standards Authority – the UK’s regulatory agency that polices advertising – is at it again. They have now banned a William Hill email campaign that they say is deceiving. According to the ASA, they banned the ad because it markets a bonus offer that requires customers to wager at least 50 bets to redeem. Such wagering requirements are common for online casinos and betting sites. What makes this slightly different, drawing the ire of the ASA, is that the customers must make those wagers within one month. For frequent customers, though, that shouldn’t be a problem.

As is often the case, the email mentioned the good parts of the deal, such as the amazing bonus offer, without going into too much detail about the rest. Customers could easily learn about the wagering requirements by visiting William Hill’s website, but that isn’t good enough for the ASA, who insists that all of the information should have been in the email.

According to the ASA, the “ad was misleading” because the “minimum number of bets, minimum spend and withdrawal limits and requirements were significant conditions likely to influence customers’ understanding of the offer and should have been stated prominently in the ad” (emphasis added). According to the ASA, the conditions of the offer – what is normally contained in fine print – should be as noticeable as the part that is meant to entice players. That is absurd. William Hill admitted that there was an error and the email should have included the statement “terms and conditions apply.” However, any rational person would assume that terms and conditions apply to any bonus. A wise person would read up on the conditions of any casino bonus before taking part in the deal. It only makes sense.

Last year I came down hard on another site, Betfair, for an ad that was banned by the ASA. Though I still don’t think it was a good ad, I made the mistake of assuming that the ASA had any credibility. They don’t. This is an agency that doesn’t understand marketing, constantly undermines good ad campaigns because they think people are too stupid to understand them and generally feels that they have to protect people from advertisements. People don’t need protection from ads. Unless they outright lie in the ads, they should be allowed. Whatever happened to caveat emptor? Failing that, whatever happened to people being responsible for themselves?

The ASA has had a number of controversial rulings. They banned an iPhone ad that said with it you can access “all of the Internet.” The reason for the ban? The iPhone doesn’t support the Flash plugin. The ASA also banned an Israeli tourism poster because it had a map of Israel that included the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Many believe that the ASA’s decision was influenced by Palestinians. They also banned a radio ad that featured a yelling German boss because it “reinforced a negative and outdated cultural stereotype of German people as overpowering and tyrannical.” The ASA banned an ad for a 3G phone service because they didn’t make it clear that customers would need broadband connections to use it. American Apparel ads have been deemed too risqué and commercials for digital radio have been banned for allegedly exaggerating their quality.

I can keep listing ridiculous bans, but I think you get the point. The reasons the ASA gives for banning ads are what I call “good advertising.” They seem to be arbitrarily enforced, leading to speculation that there is favoritism going on. In any case, if you want to take advantage of the bonus in the banned William Hill ad, visit their website, but be sure to read the terms and conditions.

Online bookmaker Paddy Power prides themselves on the variety of prop bets they offer in addition to the more traditional sports betting. In addition to sports, the Irish betting site offers betting on whether or not your flight will be cancelled due to the Icelandic volcano. It has odds on the U.S. Republicans gaining control of the House and Senate as well as the U.S. presidential election, Irish elections, English elections and more. You can bet on whether extraterrestrial life will be proven by 2013, who will win Britain’s Got Talent and who will win a court case involving a Hooters restaurant in which a waitress was ordered to lose weight.

The proposition bet that is causing the controversy, though, involves the BP oil spill. Right now, Paddy Power is taking bets on which marine species will be the first to become extinct due to the oil spill. Right now there are 4/5 odds on the Kemp’s Ridley turtle, 6/4 odds on the bluefin tuna and 8/1 odds on brown pelicans, among others.

Many people, myself included, think that Paddy Poker has now gone too far. The site says that they are trying to bring awareness to the situation. A spokesman for the company said that “hopefully our odds will bring home the imminent danger to such a varied mix of species dependent on the ocean.”

Yeah, I’m sure people would have no clue that marine life is in danger if people weren’t betting money on the extinction of the species. Paddy Power has a reputation for being witty and sometimes edgy and that adds to the charm of the website. Sometimes, however, you can go too far. A spokesman for the company said that they pride themselves on letting people put their money where their mouth is. If there is something in the news that people are discussing, Paddy Power wants to let you bet on it.

That sounds fine, but shouldn’t there be a line that shouldn’t be crossed? Shouldn’t some topics be off limits? If Paddy Power was around during the Holocaust, would they have had odds on how many Jews would be killed in the concentration camps? If they had been around during Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, would they have kept odds on how many innocent Americans would be thrown in jail without a trial for “sedition?” If they had been around during the Civil Rights movement, would they have had odds on the likelihood of Martin Luther King being assassinated? If they had been around during the Irish Revolution, would they have offered odds on whether the IRA would succeed or be beaten down by the British?

I don’t know which of these species, if any, will become extinct. I certainly hope none of them will and I think that the environment and ecosystems are not as fragile as people believe. I think life finds a way to survive. Even so, I can’t support this prop bet.

Maybe I’m overreacting. Betting money on this doesn’t hurt anybody, so even if it’s in poor taste, why should we care? In fact, maybe Paddy Power wants us to overreact. They certainly are getting a lot of publicity from this. Aside from the gambling news websites, this story has been covered by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. You know what they say: There’s no such thing as bad publicity. You’re welcome, Paddy Power.

In this global recession, companies are doing whatever they can to expand their customer base. By reaching out to people not currently using their product, companies hope to add extra revenue. For that reason, UK online betting website BetFair decided to start marketing to minors. After all, marketing only to those people who are of legal age to gamble is really limiting. What about all of those teens who are eager to place bets on your site illegally? Don’t you want their business? It seems that BetFair does.

For that apparent reason, BetFair recently released an advertising campaign geared towards a younger demographic. The ad had a picture of a young woman and a tagline that read “Online experience is measured in games, not years. Join the new breed. Annette_15.”

The woman pictured is actually Annette Obrestad, winner of the World Series of Poker Europe. In reality, she is 20 years old, though she certainly doesn’t look it. The screen name in the tagline seems to imply that she is 15 years old and honestly, she looks even younger than that. For those people who don’t follow the winners of poker tours, which would be approximately everyone, there would be no reason to think that Annette is older than 15. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that BetFair is trying to get teenagers to start gambling on their site, which would be illegal.

After complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, the ad has been banned. BetFair insists that they in no way were marketing online gambling to minors, which is kind of like Bill Clinton saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” Senator Larry Craig saying “I’m not gay” or President Obama saying “I’m not in favor of a single-payer system.” In other words, I don’t believe them. Remember the good ole’ days, when the only thing people objected to about online gambling was that it could lead to gambling addiction?