China's highest law authorities have laid out definitions of Internet gambling in order to strengthen enforcement of the country's Criminal Law.

The Criminal Law stipulates that anyone who establishes or runs a gambling den can face up to three years in jail and fines.

In serious cases, the penalty can be three to 10 years in jail and fines.

The document, jointly issued by the Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuratorate and Ministry of Public Security, aims to remove ambiguities regarding Internet gambling.

It says the law can be applied to anyone who establishes a gambling website and takes bets; establishes a gambling website and provides it to others to organize gambling; acts as an agent for a gambling website and takes bets; or shares profits with gambling websites.

All these activities will be regarded as "establishing or running a gambling house" under the Criminal Law.

It defines serious Internet gambling crimes as those where total commissions exceed 30,000 yuan; total gambling volume exceeds 300,000 yuan; the number of gamblers exceeds 120; the provision of a gambling website to others earn an illegal income of more than 30,000 yuan; or shared profits of a gambling website exceed 30,000 yuan.

Anyone who recruits agents to take bets for gambling websites, or solicits juveniles to participate in Internet gambling will also face prosecution for serious offences, says the explanation.

Chinese police had detained or arrested more than 7,360 people and frozen almost 1 billion yuan (US$148 million) in a nationwide crackdown on Internet gambling that began in January, the Ministry of Public Security announced Tuesday.

Police had dealt with 1,364 Internet gambling cases by the end of August, broken up more than 130 gangs connected with overseas gambling websites and detained about 320 suspects from Hong Kong, Macao, the Philippines and Malaysia, according to the Ministry.

The Ministry also announced in July that Chinese police had arrested more than 810 people for gambling on the football World Cup.

(Xinhua News Agency September 16, 2010)