Gambling takes hold in Guangdong as punters bet to escape poverty

In a village in Chaozhou in eastern Guangdong, where most residents earn their living cultivating oranges, at least half a dozen card tables line a short street.

The tables each seat up to 10 people competing in a local card game similar to blackjack. At noon, many women play cards for fun, placing small bets of maybe 80 yuan (HK$101).

At night, it's time for the men to play where the bets can reach 500 yuan and players can lose up to 1,000 yuan in minutes.

"You win, you would be eager to gamble. You lose, you would be even more eager to play," a resident said. "Each week-long Lunar New Year holiday, you can find many villagers in great debt because of gambling," she added.

Punters are catered for by a growing army of bookmakers, some of whom traded the drudgery of the assembly lines at local ceramics factories for the excitement of placing bets over the internet for a growing number of overseas and mainland clients.

"More than 60 per cent of the 60,000 people in my township gamble frequently, including local civil servants and teenagers," says one local bookmaker, a 29-year-old who only gave his surname, Wang.

The South China Morning Post was granted access to Wang and others by a village resident on condition the reporter did not identify herself and jeopardise the illegal business.