Not long ago, China Youth Daily published many reports about Internet gambling. According to the investigation of China Youth Daily and Zhongqing Online reporter, it is extremely difficult to supervise the private lottery sold through the Internet.

　　On September 3, the website of the Ministry of Finance released a message saying that recently, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the State Sports General Administration revised the Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Regulations on Lottery Management (hereinafter referred to as the "Detailed Rules"), and classified "welfare lottery tickets and sports lottery tickets sold through the Internet without authorization" as illegal lottery tickets.

　　Some experts said that it is the first time in the history of lottery development in China to characterize the unauthorized use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets and revise the implementation rules, which not only shows the difficulty of supervision of lottery sales on the Internet, but also shows the determination of the country to resolutely control the chaos of Internet lottery tickets, which is of great significance.

　　On August 21st, before the Ministry of Finance issued the detailed implementation rules, a message posted on the website of the Ministry of Finance showed that online lottery sales and other activities still occurred from time to time, which seriously affected the healthy development of China’s lottery industry. According to relevant regulations, it is resolutely prohibited to use the Internet to sell lottery tickets without authorization. Up to now, the Ministry of Finance has not approved any lottery institution to open a lottery business using the Internet.

　　The news specifically emphasized: "Strictly crack down on any form of illegal business activities such as online lottery and online gambling in the name of lottery."

　　The news also said that enterprises or individuals should be severely punished for illegal online lottery sales. Among them, different forms of illegal acts are explained.

　　For Internet information service providers who use the Internet to sell lottery tickets without authorization or carry out illegal and illegal network business activities in the name of lottery tickets, relevant departments and units shall order them to make corrections, and the network information department shall clean up illegal and illegal information on the Internet according to the judgment requirements of relevant departments; For those who refuse to correct or if the circumstances are serious, the competent telecommunications department shall implement measures such as closing the website and blacklisting according to law.

　　Unauthorized use of online lottery sales involved in online games shall be investigated and dealt with by the cultural and tourism departments according to law; The act of providing payment and settlement services to illegal Internet lottery sales platforms shall be investigated and dealt with by the People’s Bank of China and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission according to the division of responsibilities. Public security and market supervision departments shall, within the scope of their respective duties, investigate and deal with the unauthorized use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets, and maintain the order of the lottery market.

　　The news also stressed that it will intensify the implementation of joint punishment for dishonesty. If the circumstances are serious, it is classified as a serious act of dishonesty, and the relevant departments shall implement joint punishment according to law. Those suspected of committing crimes shall be transferred to judicial organs for legal treatment.

　　It is noteworthy that the news was jointly released by 12 central departments, namely the Ministry of Finance, the Central Civilization Office, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the People’s Bank of China, the General Administration of Market Supervision, the General Administration of Sports, the Internet Information Office and China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission.

　　In fact, this is not the first time that the Ministry of Finance has released such news. At the beginning of 2015, eight departments, including the Ministry of Finance, jointly issued an announcement to clearly define the use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets, and resolutely stop and severely investigate all kinds of unauthorized use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets.

　　In 2016, the Ministry of Finance once again issued a document in conjunction with various departments, explicitly requesting that lottery issuing and selling institutions and their agents be prohibited from using the Internet to sell lottery tickets without authorization. In May 2017, the Ministry of Finance once again joined forces with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and the State Sports General Administration to supervise the implementation of the rectification of the unauthorized use of the Internet to sell lottery tickets.

　　"This time it is a combination of Internet lottery supervision." Chen Haiping, Ph.D., Department of Psychology and Game Behavior Research Center of Beijing Normal University, found that this revision clarified the attitude of the national lottery regulatory authorities to Internet lottery, and also drew a clear line. "As long as it is (unauthorized) to use the Internet to sell, it is illegal, which initially solved the current situation without law enforcement basis."

　　Chen Haiping explained that there is no lottery law in China at present. As an administrative regulation, it can’t be said that the lottery management regulations completely fill the legal gap, but are just a kind of perfection and improvement.

　　Jun Ye (a pseudonym), an expert in the domestic lottery industry, believes that after the Internet sales of lottery tickets are defined as illegal, the handling method is no longer criticism and education or internal handling. The newly revised implementation rules raise this "violation" to the level of "illegality".

　　Jun Ye found that if selling lottery tickets without authorization is criminalized, it is in line with the gambling crime in Article 303 of the Criminal Law, but it is faced with the problem of low sentencing.

　　Some experts said that there are many kinds of online lottery sales without authorization, such as: online and offline mode, online order taking, lottery sales outlets issuing tickets; The station owner sets up WeChat group and QQ group to issue tickets after receiving orders; Sales of lottery tickets through mobile phone clients, live webcasts and other forms.

　　The expert suggested that after the implementation of the detailed rules, the supporting work of relevant departments should keep up. For example, what kind of sales behavior can be identified as using the Internet to sell is not a simple problem, but a technical work.

　　In the terminal form, the lottery website with the server located abroad is still a part that can not be ignored in supervision.

　　Chen Haiping pointed out that at present, there is no specific legal provision for overseas gambling websites in China, and the implementation rules of this new revision have not given specific investigation methods, so it is still very difficult to crack down.

　　He also said that in theory, with the help of some tools, netizens who can’t "climb over the wall" can be restricted from accessing overseas internet lottery tickets, but this can’t restrict netizens who master the "climb over the wall" technology. "The prevalence of overseas gambling during the World Cup is a typical evidence."

　　It is worth noting that the newly revised implementation rules also deleted two regulations on "lottery issuers, sales organizations’ approval of sales plans and prize-giving activities".

　　"This is another major change, because it involves the problem that the lottery regulatory authorities have been too dead and too detailed in the management of lottery issuers and sales organizations." Chen Haiping said.

　　According to reports, in the past, a change in a sales plan or a change in the face text of a lottery ticket had to be approved by the financial department, so the corresponding lottery issuers and sales organizations could not cope with the market and could not adjust the design of lottery tickets according to the reaction of lottery players or the market.

　　According to the new rules, the lottery regulatory authorities will only check the lottery rules in the future, "how the institutions sell and how to design the ticket face are no longer in charge". Chen Haiping regards this adjustment as "decentralization" and "returning the initiative to the lottery issuers and sales organizations has also created a new competitive environment and helped to activate the regional lottery market".

　　More importantly, it also saves the financial department, which was not proficient in lottery business, the administrative cost of approving sales plans and distributing prizes.

　　China Youth Daily Zhongqing Online Trainee Reporter Zhu Caiyun Reporter Li Chao