China

Betting is banned in mainland China apart from two state lottery monopolies. State Council lottery regulations prohibit virtually all gambling but carve out the Welfare Lottery (Ministry of Civil Affairs) and the Sports Lottery (General Administration of Sport), and neither is legally deemed "gambling". The Sports Lottery’s sports result pools (football outcome pools, single-match pools, NBA and football) are the only regulated channel that resembles sports betting. All other sports betting is prohibited, and lottery sales to under-18s are banned.

There is no legal pari-mutuel horse racing betting. Wuhan’s "competitive horse industry" experiments produced only short-lived lottery-style trials. Prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi are blocked by the Great Firewall and treated as illegal online gambling. Offshore and cross-border online gambling is severely criminalised: in 2024 authorities blocked more than 4,500 illegal sites and arrested more than 11,000 people, and the Supreme People’s Court directed courts to punish organisers severely. Through 2025 and 2026 the crackdown became more centralised and international, with no sign of liberalisation.

The two state lotteries sell enormous volumes. Together they sold nearly 628 billion yuan (about US$90 billion) of tickets in 2025: 419.39 billion yuan from the Sports Lottery and 208.58 billion yuan from the Welfare Lottery. Even so, multiple estimates put China’s illegal gambling market at 10 times the size of the national lottery or more, so there’s a clear gap between what the law says and what people actually do.

Are There Betting Sites That Serve China?

Yes, but none of them is legal. Gambling is common in China: lottery outlets are everywhere, people routinely host social games at home, and criminal groups run full-scale underground casinos and clandestine betting sites. It doesn’t take much effort to find a game in most neighbourhoods.

Offshore online casinos also do big business in China. The government has struggled to regulate them because they operate from countries such as the UK and the Philippines, where internet wagering is legal and regulated. Chinese authorities don’t rely on the Great Firewall alone, though. Gambling is a criminal matter under Article 303 of the Criminal Law, and enforcement against offshore and cross-border gambling has been stepped up, not eased.

No foreign gambling site is a safe option from mainland China. The only lawful betting is the state lottery monopoly run by the China Sports Lottery (CSL) and China Welfare Lottery (CWL), and everything else, online or offline, falls under Article 303.

China is still an extremely valuable market for internet casinos. Some analysts even think Alibaba will eventually control the online gambling industry. With a population of 1.35 billion and a strong gambling culture, many betting websites are willing to take the legal risk despite the strict laws.

Is Online Betting Legal in China?

No. Chinese law prohibits all forms of online gambling.

Police tend to focus on breaking up underground gambling rings run by criminal groups inside China, which is what Article 303 of the Criminal Law targets: whoever, for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession can be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of up to three years, criminal detention or public surveillance, plus a fine.

Taking part in any unsanctioned gaming is also illegal in mainland China. Lawful betting is limited to the two state lotteries.

Can You Deposit in Renminbi?

There is no lawful way to fund an online betting account from mainland China. Offshore sites that accept renminbi or Hong Kong dollar deposits are operating outside Chinese law, which reserves lawful betting for the state lottery monopoly.

Does the Great Firewall Block Betting Sites?

Yes. Alongside criminal enforcement under Article 303, China’s internet censorship system blocks access to known gambling websites. If a betting site shows an error message from inside China, it has probably been caught by the Great Firewall.

China Gambling Laws

China’s gambling laws clearly outlaw all unsanctioned betting, and the ban makes no distinction between online and offline gambling. Authorities are constantly on the lookout for underground gambling dens, and police raids on criminally run casinos are regularly in the news.

Hong Kong and Macau are the only exceptions. Each is a special administrative region with some latitude to set local laws, and China has taken no action against either for legalising gambling, though it does discourage citizens from bringing more than a limited amount of money into Macau. So the closest legal alternatives for mainland residents are betting on horses in Hong Kong or visiting Macau’s casinos and sportsbooks.

China has moved against internet betting, not toward it. Online lottery ticket sales have been suspended since 2015, so both state lotteries sell almost entirely through physical outlets. They offer a very basic form of gambling but are immensely popular.

The China Welfare Lottery has sold tickets since 1987 and uses the proceeds to fund social welfare programmes such as helping homeless people and responding to disasters. In 2025 it sold more than 208 billion yuan of tickets.

The China Sports Lottery launched in 1989 and is the closest thing to legal sports betting in the country. It originally took bets only on football and basketball, then expanded in 2014 to hockey, handball, table tennis, badminton, water polo and volleyball. Sales have grown fast since launch, and during the 2014 World Cup it set a single-day record of RMB 550 million. It is the only lawful sports betting channel in mainland China. Foreign online sportsbooks with wider markets are illegal there and are among the sites the Great Firewall blocks.