Hotel ran illegal casino

A bar in a five-star hotel in Sanya, Hainan province, which previously became famous as a "pilot gambling operation" for the Chinese mainland, has been closed for the second time due to illegal gambling.

The bar at the Mangrove Tree Resort World Sanya Bay in the southern island province offered gambling activities such as blackjack and baccarat, China Central Television (CCTV) reported Saturday, but authorities never actually approved gambling on the mainland.

It was not the first time that the bar has been punished for operating a gambling business. In February 2013 it was temporarily shut down for operating as a cashless underground casino, but it had already drawn international attention from investors as being the first of its kind and was believed to be a step forward in legalizing gambling on the mainland.

In the wake of last year's media reports, the city government of Sanya immediately denied that the city allowed the legal operations of casinos, and shut down the bar. It resumed operation shortly afterward but on January 16 the city government suspended operations at the resort as well as two other sites after an inspection, xinhuanet.com reported.

After an emergency meeting on Saturday night held in the wake of the CCTV report, the city government vowed to mete out punishments. The publicity office of the provincial Party committee said on Sunday that police have detained people in relation to the case, and the matter is being investigated.

A staff member with the hotel told the Global Times that the bar is undergoing "equipment maintenance," but did not say when it would reopen.

According to the CCTV report, the bar had an admission price of 1,000 yuan ($163.75), and the money could be changed to chips with a ratio of 1 yuan to 10 chips in the bar. The chips could be changed to points at the hotel to pay for accommodation, luxury goods, jewelry and artwork for sale at the resort, the report revealed.

"We know that gambling is forbidden in China, so what we have in the resort is just a bar with drinks and other entertainment," a media officer surnamed Wang from the Antaeus Group, the company behind the resort, told the Global Times in a previous report.

The CCTV report claimed that the reopening of the bar encouraged other underground casinos to operate, and some went as far as to advertise by spreading cards in public areas.

Chinese police have investigated 1,527 gambling cases and detained more than 5,300 suspects since the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Public Security said on Sunday.