APPT Nanjing Millions shut down by police
By Ben Blaschke and Andrew W Scott
The APPT Nanjing Millions has been dramatically shut down after the Chinese National Police raided the tournament late this afternoon.
Photos taken shortly after the raid show police blocking the entrance to the Wutaishan Sports Center, where the event has been running since Tuesday, and a sign on the door which reads: “Due to the APPT Nanjing Millions tournament being suspected of illegal gambling, the police are now investigating and the event is being ceased. All related staff should go and register at the designated location and co-operate with the police for the investigation.”
The Nanjing Millions was being run by the team from PokerStars Macau at City of Dreams. WGM tried contacting several Pokerstars Macau staff, including APPT President Danny McDonagh, who is in Nanjing, without success and there is still no word on what this means for either staff or players involved. At this stage there is no word of any arrests.
However, we’re hearing that the office of the tournament organizers has been seized and surrounded by police. Players in the tournament, who had come from all over China to participate, were also nearby looking for an explanation from the organizers but were told they had disappeared.
Prior to the raid, the Nanjing Millions had been a stunning success with the sheer volume of people wanting to register forcing the APPT to add an extra Day 1 flight – pushing the total number of players to over 2,300.
WGM has long been concerned about live poker events in mainland China but have been reluctant to voice our concerns for fear of possibly contributing to a situation such as this. Our suspicion has always been that one of these events would be raided, especially given the current political climate in China. Now that it has happened maybe it’s time to have a genuine rethink of the whole concept of live poker tournaments in mainland China.
The Asian Poker Tour was forced to postpone its APT China event last year due to difficulties in jumping through the many regulatory hoops required while both the APPT and WPT have faced similar challenges in the past.
This latest development certainly comes as a huge blow to poker in the region and casts a dark shadow over the future of live events in Mainland China.
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