Has anyone ever had success from China?

[addz123]

This is a thread purely out of my own curiosity, i have no intention of getting into chinese market

I'm just interested, has anyone here ever had success with the chinese market in gambling, betting or anything. Are all these things banned in china through firewalls etc?

As such a giant market (with 1/5 of world's population), and economic growth of 7% per annum, there must be sooooooooo much potential if it was tappable. I know my dad does a fair bit of business in china and he knows how much they LOVE to gamble.

I also remember writing some news article like months ago when China was developing a mega casino resort on one of its offshore islands - anyone know what Chinese gambling future looks like? Pokerprop i'm sure you must be aware of things happening there with it next door to you and all.

anyone here planning stuff for the future with this market or east asia?

I'm doing this nice course at uni about chinese security and their future; and one thing to point out is that China is just as close to collapsing as it is to becoming a superpower. Just IMAGINE if China's communist party relenquished control of the internet. This would create the biggest online market in the world. It's actually scary yet at the same time so incredible to postulate for what it would do for this industry!

[JTJagger]

I do a lot of work in China, with excellent success.

Gambling is a prominent part of Chinese culture. Baccarat is the casino game of choice, but there's also a lot of movement in games like mahjong, which is a skill game with an element of chance.

The Chinese are very superstitious gamblers, and value certain things you may not consider elsewhere. Live dealers is an absolute must, as is previous outcome tracking. A few other bizarre prejudices -- pregnant dealers are bad luck, for example -- and it's important to recognise these nuances and work with operators that are either a) understanding, or b) accomodating.

Many Western-style operators don't seem to grasp this at all, so we mainly work with Asian based ones, from places like the Philippines.

The major conversion issues in China are payment challenges so you really need to understand the climate here.

There isn't much of an affiliate industry in China.

Macau is the "offshore haven" you refer to (though it's actually on the mainland, and is a "Special Administrative Region", and was a Portuguese colony until 1999) and was turned into a gambling haven in the 60s by the Portuguese, and remained so upon reverting back to Chinese rule in 1999. Macau broke the gaming monopoly they'd previously afford Stanley Ho in 2002, which prompted an influx of Las Vegas casinos including Sands, Wynn, MGM. Macau does more in pure gaming revenues annually than Las Vegas, though the Chinese have been implementing measures to restrict Chinese mainland flow to Macau by limiting the number of times per year they can visit (these change regularly).

That's all I have for you as your post was quite general, but if you have any specific questions I'm more than happy to offer any insight where I can.

[Newjabber]

I wonder if pokerlistings are having success with the chinese market?


Sorry, just couldent resist

[addz123]

I am just really interested in this topic - without having any actually plans to become a professional affiliate or anything.

JT, with respect to the work you do, are we talking 'online' targeting the chinese market directly. Do the the firewall restrictions their challenge you, or do you circumvent these in another way (you don't have to give personal information about on a forum about you business if you don't want to, i understand).

Also, when you say "live dealers", do you mean chinese culture won't like online poker rooms with robotic dealers?

Was very interesting hearing what you said btw. thanks

[JTJagger]

Firewall issues aren't really a concern at the moment. If you're large enough to be banned by the government filters, you're doing alright!

Operators are able to move and obfuscate server locations very well, and front-facing operators are all skins of larger networks so circumvent firewalls as and where required. In short, firewalls aren't a major challenge for the time being. This very well may change, though.

We do target Chinese markets online directly. Internet traffic in China can be very cheap.

By "live dealers", I mean casino operators that have table games that use a live dealer on a webcam dealing cards.

As for automated poker rooms, this won't be hugely successful -- not just because of the automated element, but because poker as the West know it isn't a game that has picked up in China. Those that do play poker in China are typically expatriates and/or Chinese that have been educated or traveled abroad, or grinders making a living that understand the maths and accordingly aren't subject to the same superstitions and nuances as the gambling public at large.

Superstitions are a wonderful thing for our industry

[thefarang]

Agree with JT on poker. I was in Macau for the APT and APPT and they were filming a movie with Johnny Chan. I spoke with one of the producers of the film about poker in China and she was very clear that western style thoughts about poker would never make it in China. In the west you build on the skill element. In China you have to build the story around luck.

Living in Thailand, you see a lot of that too. Not just in gambling but in how they think about problems. A girl who cannot find a husband is unlucky. She goes to the temple to pray for good luck in finding a guy. The fact that she acts like a bitch and no guys want to talk to her is not a factor in her thinking :-) It's all about the luck.

You also see the same thing in business. I had a friend who used to own a bar in a tourist part of town. She always blared Thai music from her little bar and the place was always deserted. I only popped in because I know her cousin and wanted to give her a little business. But all the bars around her bar were packed every night. Not surprisingly they all played western music (not country western, but music from US/Europe). I asked her one night "Why don't you change your music? All the other bars play farang (foreigner) music, maybe you would get more customers if you played farang music." Her response, without any hesitation, was "But I don't like farang music." In her thinking Buddha will drop customers from the sky into her bar if she is lucky. If she is not lucky then the customers don't come and she needs to go to the temple and make merit (make offerings). The fact that she made the place unappealing for customers didn't seem to factor into her thought process.

[guillaumezur]

really interesting feedback, i always wondered the same things about china maket