Tim Alper is a journalist who covers betting news and regulation for CasinoBeats. He joined the CasinoBeats team in May 2025. He reports on breaking news and developments in the world of betting, casinos, and...
Read Full BioA court in China has jailed a graduate web developer for writing code for an online casino website in exchange for a lucrative salary.
The Chinese newspaper Jiangsu Legal Daily (via MSN) reported that a branch of the People’s Court in the Zhangjiagang District of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, found the developer guilty of gambling-related offenses.
The court issued the developer, named Xiao Qian, an undisclosed jail term and a fine (also undisclosed).
Writing Code for Online Casino: Developer Jailed
Prosecutors explained that the developer was struggling to find employment after graduating with an IT degree from a technology university.
After seeing a job advertisement for a tech startup, the developer sent an application. The company replied quickly, asking Xiao Qian to attend an interview.
Soon after, the company announced that Xiao Qian had secured the job, offering a salary of over 10,000 yuan ($1,400) in addition to substantial benefits.
This salary is extremely generous for a junior-level web developer in China, particularly those with no additional academic qualifications or work experience.
The court explained that the firm asked the graduate to develop front-end pages for a website that featured a game with gambling-related themes.
The developer felt uneasy and asked superiors if the site was to become an online casino.
A manager replied that the website’s data all “came from legitimate sources,” adding that its servers would be based overseas.
This made Xiao Qian “even more suspicious” that the website was indeed an illegal online casino. But, reluctant to give up “such a high-paying job,” the graduate decided not to leave.
Police Raid
Xiao Qian eventually felt too uneasy about the situation and resigned two months later. However, a year after this, the police raided the firm, claiming it had developed a “large overseas gambling website.”
Scores of individuals were arrested, in addition to Xiao Qian and several freelance tech contractors. The presiding judge warned that criminal gangs were now using high salaries as bait to dupe developers into working on illegal gambling platforms.
The judge said, in sentencing, “Graduates seeking employment should be wary of new ‘high salary, low skills’ traps. They must not let the anxiety of job hunting blind them to potential dangers. Otherwise, they may risk jeopardizing their promising futures.”
Elsewhere in Jiangsu, a court in the city of Wuxi recently jailed a man for running an illegal fishing-themed “gambling pond.”
The court found that the man had offered high-paying patrons cash rewards for catching black carp at his pond. The man also failed to deliver a payout when a patron hit the pond’s “jackpot.”
