Big Tournament Poker Back in China After 2015's Nanjing Millions Bust
Written by
Pete - Saturday, August 6, 2016,
Live poker
The APL (Asian Poker League) will be running a poker festival from Friday 12th - Thursday 18th August in Bejing - the first in Mainland China since the APPT Nanjing Millions was shut down by the authorities last April and the club closed on suspicion of illegal gambling.
After the raid, two managers of Beijing’s Star Poker Club and organizers of the APPT event, Jian Yang and Li Su, were arrested and charged with running an illegal gambling house and submitting false application materials.
Despite China's tough stance on illegal gambling outside of Macau and Hong Kong, the shut-down had been something of a surprise as the government tends to be lenient towards tournament poker, classing it as a "mind sport", although it would appear that the closing down on the Nanjing Millions had been due to the presence of illegal cash games, and tournament re-buys (both of which are banned in the country).
According the Ops Director of the Asian Poker League, James Kim, such misdemeanours would not occur during their festival, and as such he wasn't concerned about a repeat of the Nanjing Millions.
The event will have a $500k prize-pool with a $1.1k entry.