Guangdong Province, Hong Kong and Macao may fight underground gambling together.

The South China province is looking to work with the bordering special administrative regions to deal with Mark Six and lottery ticket related gambling.

The joint crackdown will focus on eastern and western parts of Guangdong where secret Mark Six and illegal lottery ticket sales have become widespread, said an official from the Guangdong Provincial Welfare Lottery Ticket Center.

"The crackdown aims to bring the active secret Mark Six under control and ensure a strong and healthy lottery ticket market development in the prosperous province," the official said.

Different law enforcement organs will participate in the crackdown.

A campaign to expose bankers and gamblers who claim to know lucky numbers of the Mark Six lotteries and horse races in Hong Kong or Macao is also in the works, said the official on condition of anonymity.

Mark Six is illegal in the Chinese mainland but legal in both Hong Kong and Macao.

Illegal sales of Mark Six tickets have affected authorized lotteries in the province.

Guangdong has the largest volume of lottery ticket sales in the mainland. Sales volume topped 3.15 billion yuan (US$381 million) last year.

Through lottery tickets sales, Guangdong raised more than 1.1 billion yuan (US$133 million) for the province's social welfare industry and handed more than 190 million yuan (US$23 million) in taxes to the State in 2003.

As illegal lotteries grow, however, sales of legitimate ones have dropped considerably since the beginning of this year.

"They (underground lottery ticket sales) have hurt Guangdong's goal of selling more than 3.45 billion yuan (US$417 million) worth of lottery tickets this year," said the official.

And the cities of Jieyang, Maoming and Zhanjiang have become the most serious victims.

The three cities, in the top 10 regions in lottery ticket sales volume in previous years, are on the bottom of Guangdong's lottery ticket sales listing.

Last year, police smashed more than 250 gambling gangs, detained 2,000 suspects in the province, a provincial Public Security Bureau official said. Among those arrested were bankers and gamblers from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao.

More than 1,800 secret Mark Six outlets were busted, with 25 million yuan (US$3 million) worth of cash seized.

(China Daily June 17, 2004)