Chinese football veteran gets three years for internet gambling

Former Chinese soccer star Lv Dong has been sentenced by a court in the north eastern city of Dashiqiao to three years in prison for operating an Internet sports betting ring. He was also required to pay a fine of 1.5 million yuan – about $200 000, reports the news agency Xinhua.
Lv Dong was convicted of running an online gambling operation as a general agent by exploiting the overseas “Winning Goal” network from September 2008 to March 2009, during which time he handled wagers totalling 30.24 million yuans (about US$ 4 million) from his agents and other gamblers.
When arrested, he reportedly handed in 110 000 yuan ($15 000).
Born in 1967, Lv Dong was a member of the Liaoning ten-time winning soccer team in the Chinese soccer league. After his retirement in the 1990s, he worked as a coach for its second-string team and ran a bar. He admitted to the judge that he had controlled three accounts of WH0002, Wj228B and HQ711 from Winning Goal for online gambling, and took 20 percent kickbacks from the losers’ betting as well as one percent of the total wagers placed from September 8, 2008 to March 22, 2009.
“I received kickbacks of something around 70,000 to 80,000 yuans (about $10 000), and the money was transferred through banks,” said Lv.
According to Lv, the Winning Goal runs the online gambling in four categories: shareholders, general agents, agents and members, and only those members are allowed to cast their betting, while the others merely split the dividends in accordance with agreed percentages of 2.25, 1.25 and 0.75.

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