On November 22, 2023, the police in Dujiangyan Irrigation Project, Chengdu, issued a police report that Chen Moujie was suspected of opening a casino, and has been arrested according to law, and the case is under further investigation.
There have been rumors before that Douyu CEO Chen Shaojie has been investigated. His last appearance in public view was during the company's second quarter financial report analysis conference call in August. On November 6th, the cover news sought confirmation from Douyu regarding the relevant content, confirming the news of Chen Shaojie's loss of contact.
According to public information, Chen Shaojie was born in Jinan in 1984. In 2010, he bought Station A, the originator of the anime website in China. At Station A, a "live broadcast" channel has been established. Four years later, he separated the "Live Broadcasting" channel from Station A and renamed it "Douyu TV".
In July 2019, Douyu was listed on NASDAQ with a market value of nearly $4 billion on that day. In October of that year, Chen Shaojie ranked 1507th on the 2019 Hurun Rich List with a fortune of 2.5 billion yuan.
Regarding the determination and sentencing standards for the crime of opening a casino, Lawyer Shi Wei from Yunnan Tianwaitian Law Firm told Interface News that the definition of the crime of opening a casino in the Criminal Law refers to the act of opening and operating a casino, providing gambling venues and equipment for others to gamble in, and profiting from it. Among them, gambling venues may not be fixed.
Guo Xueliang, Director of the Criminal Affairs Department of Beijing Zhicheng Law Firm, introduced that the crime of opening a casino was a new charge separated from gambling in the 2006 Criminal Law Amendment (VI). The Eleventh Amendment to the Criminal Law, implemented in 2021, revised Article 303 of the Criminal Law, increasing the statutory maximum sentence for the crime of opening a gambling house from three years to five years, and adding new provisions for the crime of organizing participation in gambling outside the country. At this point, there are three charges related to gambling crimes in China, namely gambling crime, opening a casino crime, and organizing participation in gambling outside the country (territory).
The provisions on the crime of opening a casino in China's Criminal Law are relatively simple, leading to some controversial issues in the determination of the crime. Guo Xueliang pointed out that the first is the determination of "casino", the second is the determination of "opening a casino", and finally, the determination of the circumstances of conviction and sentencing.
Guo Xueliang stated that the meaning of casinos is not clearly defined in the criminal law. Literally, a "casino" is a place for gambling. Based on his experience in handling such cases, he divided "casinos" into three types: one is a place with physical entities in reality, called an "ordinary casino"; The second is a website or platform specifically established for gambling on the internet, known as an "online casino"; The third is the "social casino" built online through social platforms and live streaming platforms with legitimate business content.
Regarding the third type of "social casino", Guo Xueliang introduced that it refers to using internet social platforms to lure users into addiction through various methods such as fictional lottery, inducing users to participate in random games on the platform, and agreeing with users to bet on the outcome of the game, using their deviation in probability understanding and subjective lucky mentality to earn illegal money. At present, 1v1 chat products and live streaming products are the hardest hit areas involved in gambling, and multiple well-known products in the industry have been filed for investigation on suspicion of opening casinos.
After querying the interface news, it was found that in recent years, "social casinos" have continuously entered the public eye and attracted widespread attention.
In December last year, Dujiangyan Irrigation Project City Court of Sichuan Province heard the first case of using the live broadcast platform to open a casino. The defendant was the live broadcast room of "Send Nine Outdoors" in front of the fighting platform. Three people opened a casino using live streaming platforms, attracting nearly 120 million yuan in cash. After trial, the court found that the actions of the three individuals constituted the crime of opening a casino. According to the law, the broadcasters Fu and Pan were sentenced to 6 years in prison, and their logistics and finance Zhou were suspended according to the law. The three individuals were jointly fined 1.65 million yuan.
Since April 2023, multiple chat platforms have been investigated for allegedly opening casinos. On April 17th, four executives from the Wuhan headquarters of the voice room product companion company, as well as multiple financial and technical operation employees, were taken away by the police for investigation on suspicion of opening a casino, resulting in the freezing of over 2 billion yuan of funds in its domestic company account. In voice room products, a common gameplay is that users can brush gifts for the anchor and receive high-level rebates. Although gifts are settled in the form of virtual currency, due to the platform's behavior of winning or losing through probabilistic gameplay, this gameplay is considered as gathering for gambling or opening a casino.
On June 2nd, Qianyin Network Technology (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., which operates "Huanhuan Voice" and "Duoduo Voice", was investigated by the police of Changzhou County, Zhejiang Province, with over a hundred people involved. The company's personnel were taken away on suspicion of opening a casino; On July 11th, Guangzhou Xinyu Network Technology Co., Ltd., the operator of "Oxygen Voice", was investigated by Hubei police on suspicion of opening a casino.
In October of this year, a Shanghai court concluded a case involving new types of online gambling. Players can purchase tickets through the app to participate in mobile game competitions, and the top ranked players can share the "prize pool". After trial, the People's Court of Putuo District, Shanghai found that the defendant Li and others used electronic sports as a carrier to set rules and provide a platform on the APP to control the management of gambling personnel; Establish an independent payment and settlement platform to continuously organize online gambling for a period of time, taking advantage of profits. The People's Court ultimately sentenced more than ten people, including Li, to imprisonment ranging from one year to five years and six months, and fined ranging from 10000 to 60000 yuan for the crime of opening a casino.
What kind of behavior would be considered as opening a casino? Guo Xueliang stated that different types of "casinos" have different forms of expression, but the core criterion is whether they provide a "place" or "service" for gambling behavior, including setting up their own casinos, gambling websites, proxy gambling websites, accepting bets, participating in sharing, and so on.
Guo Xueliang pointed out that "Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in Handling Online Gambling Crime Cases" proposes that "those who knowingly provide internet access, server hosting, network storage space, communication transmission channels, advertising, membership development, software development, technical support and other services to gambling websites, and charge corresponding service fees, shall be deemed as accomplices to the crime of opening casinos. Therefore, in cases where social media platforms engage in gambling, they are often regarded as objectively providing technical support, fund settlement, and other services to gambling groups, which constitutes the crime of opening a casino.
Shi Wei added that behaviors such as establishing a gambling website and accepting bets, establishing a gambling website and providing it to others to organize gambling, acting as an agent for gambling websites and accepting bets, and participating in profit sharing on gambling websites all belong to the 'opening of a casino' behavior stipulated in Article 303 (2) of the Criminal Law.
According to Shi Wei, the serious behaviors involved in opening a casino online include a total of over 30000 yuan in fishing profits, a total of over 300000 yuan in gambling capital, a total of over 120 participants in gambling, the establishment of a gambling website and providing it to others to organize gambling. The illegal gains amount to over 30000 yuan, participating in profit sharing on gambling websites, and recruiting subordinate agents for gambling websites, Accepting bets and soliciting minors to participate in online gambling through subordinate agents.
Regarding the determination of incrimination and sentencing, there is no clear provision in Chinese law. It is necessary to comprehensively consider various factors, including the amount of lottery profits, the amount of gambling capital, the number of participants, the amount of illegal gains, and social impact, in order to determine whether their obstruction of social management order has reached the level of committing the crime. Guo Xueliang stated that only when the act of opening a casino reaches a certain degree of severity can it constitute the crime of opening a casino, Otherwise, it only violates the Public Security Management Punishment Law and does not constitute a crime.
Guo Xueliang also pointed out that although there is no specific standard for filing and convicting cases, the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Law's "Opinions on the Sentencing Standards for Certain Crimes" draws on the standards for gathering people to gamble in the 2005 gambling interpretation, and clarifies the criminalization criteria for the crime of opening a gambling house. It can be referred to as follows: 1. Organizing more than three people to gamble, and the cumulative amount of profits from the lottery reaches more than 5000 yuan; 2、 Organizing more than 3 people to gamble, with a cumulative gambling amount of over 50000 yuan; 3、 Organizing more than 3 people to gamble, with a cumulative number of participants reaching 20 or more; 4、 Other situations where a casino should be held criminally responsible.