An anti-gambling campaign has forced 84 casinos and small gambling houses in neighboring countries out of business in the past two months, reported the Beijing News on Monday.

The casinos, along China's southwestern borders with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, closed down after their business shrank dramatically due to the work of police in Yunnan province since last December.

Chinese gamblers were the main patrons in these casinos, most of which are funded and run by Chinese, the paper quoted an unidentified local police official in Yunnan as saying.

Authorities in the neighboring countries have banned their residents from entering these casinos, he added.

With the help of their foreign counterparts, Yunnan police began to hunt Chinese casino bosses, cutting off banking services, and prevent gamblers from betting abroad.

Earlier this month the province's government reported that 68 casinos in Myanmar and Laos had closed, and 14 others were suffering losses and close to closure, while a large number of Chinese staff in the casinos had been persuaded to return home.

Gambling has long been banned on the Chinese mainland, though it contributes much to the economy of the Special Administrative Region of Macao and is also legal in Hong Kong. Lotteries are legal on the mainland, but they have been blighted with scandals involving corruption and fixing in the past.

In recent years a growing number of wealthy people from the mainland, including corrupt officials, have traveled abroad to gamble millions away in casinos.

The government last week announced it would launch a relentless fight against gambling, with one of the focuses on preventing Chinese from squandering money in overseas casinos.

Gambling websites have been shut down, while telephone hotlines and a website were set up to report gambling. It was also announced that officials caught gambling abroad would be sacked.

(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2005)