Villager cultivates a future away from gambling

Xie Changping's life began to change for the better after he leased more than 1.3 hectares of chrysanthemum fields about a decade ago.

The 61-year-old, who lives in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, nearly lost all of his money to gambling. But he stepped away from the habit after he started the chrysanthemum business. He has refrained from gambling for about eight years, and has made more than 200,000 yuan ($27,500) a year from farming chrysanthemums, which can be processed into products such as bouquets, wine and tea.

Xie said he doesn't want to spend his hard-earned money on gambling anymore or disrupt relations with his wife and children, which had been undermined by his heavy gambling.

His story is an example of the efforts of Ningbo's Ninghai county, one of 101 counties and districts in which the Ministry of Public Security has chosen to monitor rural gambling in order to control and reduce it.

Mahjong and card games are highly popular in China, and are a major form of entertainment for many people in the countryside, especially during festival reunions and gatherings, which serve as a hotbed of gambling with mahjong and poker.

Games between relatives or friends where the stakes are small and not for profit are allowable, but engaging in gambling with a large amount of money, as a profession and running casinos are illegal.

Wu Haitao, a professor at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, and also a researcher in rural vitalization, said though rural gambling usually takes place among acquaintances and involves a small sum of money, such entertainment can easily become illegal.

Some who started gambling for leisure may end up relying on the games to make money as their addiction grows, Wu said, adding that uncontrolled gambling may lead to the development of such industries as predatory lending and debt collection.

For police at the grassroots level, these industries pose great threats to security and stability in rural communities. Guo Bin, chief of police in Liyang township of Ninghai, said gamblers who turn to usury risk falling victim to violent crimes such as false imprisonment.

Noting that hard work, sound industries and efforts to broaden income and reduce expenditures are key for rural vitalization, Wu said widespread gambling in rural areas jeopardizes the financial stability of local families by dragging many of them back into poverty.

In 2023 and 2024, the No 1 Central Document, the overarching policy guiding the development of agriculture and rural areas that China issues annually, called on authorities to tackle illegal and criminal activities related to gambling in rural areas.

In November 2022, the Ministry of Public Security started a nationwide campaign, organizing public security authorities to detect and crack down on casinos and groups organizing gambling in rural areas.

Since then, public security authorities have cracked 24,000 criminal cases and 179,000 public security cases, and dismantled 13,000 gambling organizations.

At a conference on tackling rural gambling, which was held in Ningbo in October, police across the country were asked to keep dealing hard blows to illegal gambling, and to increase help for those addicted to gambling.

Guo said police in Liyang pay quarterly visits to residents who have a record of engaging in illegal gambling, and help those having difficulties landing a job by sharing their information with nearby companies that have vacancies, he said.

A stable and regular job can bring them a sense of fulfillment, security and dignity, reducing the chances of them relapsing, Guo said.

For Guo, a comprehensive approach involving not only law enforcement, but other sectors is needed to control gambling in rural areas.

The development of the chrysanthemum industry in Haitou village of Liyang, the village where Xie lives, offers a vivid case of how resources at the grassroots level can be mobilized to achieve the goal.

Qiu Yiyin, an official of Liyang township, said Haitou was once an underdeveloped village where gambling was popular. In 2015, village officials visited Kaifeng, Henan province, and brought back the first batch of chrysanthemum seeds, Qiu said.

In 2016, the village held its first chrysanthemum festival, which became a big hit.

Many tourists were attracted to the village to see the colorful chrysanthemums and snatched up produce sold by villagers, such as potatoes and corn, according to Qiu.

The success attracted many villagers to join the chrysanthemum industry.

Chrysanthemum farming, which is significantly more profitable and involved than rice farming, gradually drew villagers away from gambling, Qiu said.

Now, the village makes about 1.1 million yuan a year from the industry, according to Qiu.

Xie, the chrysanthemum farmer, blamed poverty, a large amount of leisure time, a lack of job opportunities and limited forms of entertainment for his decades-long immersion in gambling.

For him, the growth of the local economy has brought him much better odds of getting rich than gambling ever did.

The farmer, who also hires dozens of workers to help with his business, said he now spends most of his time trying to make his chrysanthemums grow better.

"I gambled because I used to live an empty life. Now I am too busy to do that," Xie said.

Wu, the researcher, said sustained efforts to address the issue of rural gambling will help more people come back to reality and promote the development of rural areas by accumulating wealth through hard work.

Wu said that introducing more kinds of healthier entertainment, such as reading and playing sports, would also work to control rural gambling and improve the ethos in rural communities.

wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn