{"id":88864,"date":"2018-09-24T05:58:35","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T12:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=88864"},"modified":"2018-09-24T05:58:35","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T12:58:35","slug":"boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Boyaa Interactive CEO Imprisoned in China on Bribery Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The CEO of online games company Boyaa Interactive will serve a 12-month prison sentence in China for bribery.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Zhang Wei poses for a photo opportunity to celebrate the launch of Boyaa Interactive on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2013. Its share price dived by 12 percent in the wake of China\u2019s online social poker ban. (Image: Stringer\/Reuters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Hong Kong-based social games outfit announced Friday that Zhang Wei had failed in his appeal to have the charges quashed by the Higher People\u2019s Court of Shenzhen and had resigned as CEO. He was initially sentenced in May having been found guilty of \u201cbribes by entities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specifics of these \u201cbribes\u201d is unclear, but the timing of his arrest last April was significant. It came just one week after Chinese state media announced a ban<\/a> on just the kind of play-money social poker and chess apps Boyaa provided.<\/p>\n

Gateway Drug<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Three executives of Ourgame — another Hong Kong-based social poker company, which acquired the World Poker Tour<\/a> in 2015 — were also arrested around the same time. Ourgame had responded defiantly — and perhaps rashly — to the announcement of the crackdown last May.<\/p>\n

[Social poker] not only plays an important role in the creation of social, cultural and economic values, it also acts as a bridge between China and the world\u2019s intellectual sports,\u201d it said. \u201cOurgame will continue to introduce and hold more top-level intellectual sports events and promote the global spread of chess and card culture.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beijing\u2019s beef with social poker apps appears to be that they can be used as a recruitment tool for illegal underground games, and that players were using them to gamble online for real money by using the play money chips as markers before settling up in real cash.<\/p>\n

Poker Boom Postponed<\/strong><\/h2>\n

South East Asia had been experiencing something of a tournament poker boom until the crackdown arrested its development. Tournament fields in Macau and Manila were bustling, fed by enthusiastic players from mainland China who had qualified through play-money apps like Boyaa\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\n

Boyaa\u2019s stock plummeted 12 percent in the wake of the ban. As owner of the Boyaa Poker Tour (BPT), its business model relied heavily on using its play money poker app in China as a feeder for live tournaments. The BPT website shows it has yet to hold a single event in 2018.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Boyaa recently reported its Q2 earnings fell 34.4 percent, largely due to\u00a0\u201cthe effect of regulatory risk regarding the market rumor of the implementation of the \u2018Administrative Measures of Online Chess and Card Games.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It has also said that there was \u201cinsufficient legal\u00a0basis\u201d to support the charges against its CEO,<\/em> according to its legal counsel. <\/em><\/p>\n

The People\u2019s Court disagreed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The CEO of online games company Boyaa Interactive will serve a 12-month prison sentence in China for bribery. The Hong Kong-based social games outfit announced Friday that Zhang Wei had failed in his appeal to have the charges quashed by the Higher People\u2019s Court of Shenzhen and had resigned as CEO. He was initially sentenced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":88867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,21,3313,10,19,60,20,14,61,22988,16693],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBoyaa Interactive CEO Imprisoned in China on Bribery Charges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"CEO of Hong Kong online social poker company Boyaa Interactive, Zhang Wei, has failed in his appeal against a one-year prison sentence for bribery in China.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Boyaa Interactive CEO Imprisoned in China on Bribery Charges\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CEO of Hong Kong online social poker company Boyaa Interactive, Zhang Wei, has failed in his appeal against a one-year prison sentence for bribery in China.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-24T12:58:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/zang.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"616\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"451\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/\",\"name\":\"Boyaa Interactive CEO Imprisoned in China on Bribery Charges\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/zang.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-24T12:58:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-09-24T12:58:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"CEO of Hong Kong online social poker company Boyaa Interactive, Zhang Wei, has failed in his appeal against a one-year prison sentence for bribery in China.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/boyaa-interactive-ceo-imprisoned-in-china-on-bribery-charges\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/zang.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/zang.png\",\"width\":616,\"height\":451,\"caption\":\"Zhang Wei poses for a photo opportunity to celebrate the launch of Boyaa Interactive on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2013. 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