Chinese Student Loses a Year’s Tuition in a Day of Online Gambling

Online games are changing the lives of China’s younger generation, sometimes in a bad way. September 1st is the beginning of the new school year, but it’s not starting well for one college student who has already lost his entire tuition in an online dice game.

On Aug 27th, 2011, someone with the ID pq1573 shared a post on the Tianya online community about his misfortune. He was a college student about to start his senior year. During his spare time he played an online game called AION by SNDA, just to kill time (check out the game’s trailer here). A few days before the new school year, when he tried to buy credits for the game, he was introduced to an online dice game where — he was told — he could win game credits or virtual money. Needless to say, if he lost, he lost real money.

After just a few days of playing the game he had lost 10,000 RMB (around US$1,500). That money was supposed to cover him for the school year, including his tuition, and 2,000 RMB of it was his own earnings from the summer vacation.

In his interview with a local journalist, the school boy explained the details of the dice game. They played for AION’s virtual money. 100RMB buys 165 million in virtual money and one toss could see as much as 1 billion in virtual money on the table — equivalent to 600RMB. He said he shared his experience as a warning to other online gamers so they wouldn’t make the same mistake. The police are also investigating the incident, as online gambling is illegal in China.

The founder of SNDA, Mr. Chen Tianqiao, has ranked among China’s richest men. However, debate around how his business is run and how he profits from online games has been unceasing. This incident just raises another question for Mr. Chen: is this how you make your money?