BEIJING: China has a long history of gamblers willing to place wagers on just about anything and it is exactly this love of betting that is worrying Olympic organisers ahead of the Beijing Games.

Despite being illegal in mainland China, betting is found on street corners in nearly every city, but it is the recent emergence of online gambling that has drawn the attention of the authorities.

A court in northeast China this month convicted 42 members of an online gambling syndicate to up to 15 years in prison each for organising US$847 million in bets in just over a year of operations.

The bust was the biggest online gambling syndicate case ever in China, according to reports on the official Xinhua news agency.

Nowhere has China's penchant for gambling been more visible than in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, where gaming revenues in 2007 topped US$10 billion to outdo the Las Vegas Strip.

In an effort to curb match-fixing by athletes or sports officials, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced last month it would set up a special unit at the August 8-24 Beijing Games to monitor "abnormal" betting patterns.

"We have signed an agreement with the major, I would say the bona fide betting companies," IOC president Jacques Rogge said.

"We rely on them to advise us if there is an abnormal pattern in betting... it is their interest to work with us, and our interest to work with them," he told a news conference at the close of an IOC executive board meeting in Athens.

Rogge said the IOC unit would also work closely with Interpol to monitor "suspicious" activity and inform the international federations involved.

Unlicensed betting, and possible links to match-fixing by athletes or sports officials themselves, has been a growing concern with the massive expansion of gambling on the Internet worldwide.

Online betting in China threatened to destroy the nation's football league in 2006 when fan protests over alleged match fixing involving corrupt club officials, players and referees resulted in angry post-game riots and match boycotts.

The turmoil brought on condemnation from the Asian Football Confederation, which criticised China for not better policing the sport.

"The illegal betting and gambling in China is a black mark on our football but we can't fight it simply through national associations," AFC president Mohammed bin Hammam told AFP at the time.

"It requires government intervention to limit this through their own legal system, by putting the appropriate laws in place and enforcing them."

Since the scandal erupted, China has sought to end the scourge by jailing players and coaches, and seeking to shut down lucrative Internet gambling rings.

In April, six footballers from China's Liaoning Guangyuan side were jailed or fined in Singapore for match fixing after they were paid over US$20,000 by their manager to throw six matches last year in the city-state's S-League.

The players were allegedly paid off by their manager Wang Lin, who had bet on the team losing and who fled back to China and escaped punishment.

In May last year, Chinese police arrested 37 people suspected of operating another online syndicate that placed more than US$519 million in bets in less than two years.

More than 1,000 people are believed to have worked for the syndicate that placed bets for punters on 13 overseas gambling websites, state press reports said.

Underground gaming has become so prevalent that some Chinese academics and officials have urged the legalisation of betting so that the government can increase revenues by taxing gambling.

- AFP/yb