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Online gambling, though illegal, has become such a fad in China that authorities have been forced to launch repeated crackdowns to stem the outflow of nearly USD 75 billion in such activities every year.

Every year, about 600 billion yuan (USD 75 billion) is drawn out of the country through various online gambling activities, Peking University’s China Public Interest Lottery Research Institute has found. The sum is 15 times the amount issued by the China Lottery and the China Sports Lottery in 2003, and equalling the total amount of national tourist revenue in 2004.

The Ministry of Public Security says since online gambling usually involves large sums of money, it can easily develop into criminal activities and be an even greater security threat.

When the World Cup was held in Germany, as many as 10 billion Euros were put in the gambling companies around the world, 60 per cent of them from China and Southeast Asian countries, the China News Service reported. During this period, police in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Zhaoqing had swooped down in some big online gambling rackets.

In Shenzhen, local police had cracked 15 football gambling cases, arrested 53 people and confiscated 260,000 yuan of gambling fund and equipment. In addition, 20 million yuan of such funds were frozen.

Microgaming announces it has re-signed Lara Croft on an exclusive licensing deal with games creator Eidos Interactive, in addition to agreeing a brand new deal securing Hitman for development as video slot games.

The Tomb Raider agreement gives the gaming software provider exclusivity to continue to develop games for online and land based casino platforms, while the Hitman deal allows it to develop a new range of slots games based on the hugely successful computer game.

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend
This extension to the current deal is testament to the success of the Tomb Raider Video Slot, launched by Microgaming in October 2004. This new agreement focuses on Tomb Raider: Legend, the seventh and most innovative Tomb Raider title in the series, which has recently reached the No.1 chart position in every major video gaming territory upon its release in April this year.

Hitman
Currently one of Eidos best-selling games series, Hitman features Agent 47, a ruthless assassin working for the ICA, who may also be making his big screen debut as Eidos has recently confirmed it has an option signed to a major Hollywood Studio for the feature film rights to Hitman.

Roger Raatgever, CEO Microgaming said, “We are delighted to have extended and secured exclusive rights for two such fantastic names - Lara Croft, arguably the greatest action heroine of the last decade and Agent 47, undoubtedly set for massive mainstream success later this year. Microgaming is committed to providing its operators with state of the art games that not only feature rich graphics and excellent game play, but also some of the worlds most famous action heroes too.