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Chinese Officials Gamble, And Their Luck Run Out
中国官员豪赌，但好运已尽
By MARK McDONALD
Published: January 15, 2009
MACAO: As mayor of a small city in the Chinese hinterland, Li Weimin started out innocently enough, playing the slots in nearby Macao, games with names like Five Dragons, Chinese Kitchen and Super Happy Fortune Cat.
澳门）作为中国内陆一个小城市的市长，Li Weimin起初非常单纯，只是在澳门附近玩玩老虎机，如五条龙、中国厨房、超级快乐幸运猫等。
But he soon began to try his hand at other games, and for higher stakes, financing his increasingly frequent trips to glitzy casinos by dipping into the municipal budget and several real estate firms under his control.
但是，他很快将手伸向其他游戏，而且赌注越来越大。为了满足日益频繁前往豪华赌场的开销，Li染指市政财务和数个在他控制之下的房地产公司。
"It was easy for me to borrow or divert money from those places," the 43- year-old Li said at his trial, according to a state-run newspaper, China Daily. Eventually he lost $12 million and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
据《中国日报》报道，“对我来说，从那些地方借钱或转移资金是非常容易的。”43岁的Li Weimin在审讯中这样说。最终，他输掉了1200万美元，判处20年监禁。
Li is one of an increasing number of Communist Party bosses and government officials who, government prosecutors say, pillaged state funds, company accounts and municipal treasuries to try their luck in Macao, which sits just across the border from Guandong Province.
检方表示，共产党和政府高官中有许多人侵吞国家财产、公司资金和市政资产，然后在澳门这个毗邻广东省的地方赌博挥霍。这样的人在不断增加，Li只是其中一员。
Many of the biggest losers have been sent to prison and at least 15 have been executed. Some have committed suicide. The scandals have become a source of deep embarrassment for the Chinese government, which has now begun cracking down on travel visas for Macao.
大输家中有很多被投入监狱，至少15人被判处死刑，另外一些畏罪自杀。这些丑闻让中国政府非常为难。政府一开始缩减去往澳门的旅游签证。
While gambling remains illegal in mainland China, it is pure oxygen for Macao, which Portugal handed back to China in December 1999. The tiny territory, which has been enjoying a gambling-tourist-building boom since 2004, relies on gambling for 75 percent of its tax base.
赌博在中国大陆仍然是非法行为，但在澳门却是合法的。澳门于1999年12月由葡萄牙归还中国。这个弹丸之地从2004年开始因博彩观光而突然繁荣起来，自此75%的税收依赖于博彩业。
Now the biggest gambling market in the world, Macao has annual gambling revenues higher than the Las Vegas Strip and Atlantic City combined. Among its 31 casinos is the world's largest, the Venetian Macao.
作为现在世界上最大的博彩市场，澳门每年博彩收入远远超过拉斯维加斯和亚特兰提斯的总和。31个赌场中有一个是世界最大的，即澳门威尼斯。
Much of that prosperity is now threatened, experts here say, not only by the global economic crisis but also by the crackdown on gambling by the government in Beijing. The issue is so sensitive in China that more than a dozen interview requests over the past month were refused by government and party leaders.
专家认为，这种繁荣很大程度上潜藏危机，不仅有来自全球性经济危机的影响，也有北京政府对博彩业的抑制作用。与此相关的事情在中国相当敏感，上个月许多采访请求被党政领导拒绝。
A Chongqing official, the head of the local Communist Party's propaganda department, was accused of embezzling a total of $24 million. Along with a co-worker, he blew at least half the money at the Casino Lisboa here, according to Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency.
重庆一名党宣部门的领导，被控侵吞公款共计2400万美元。新华社对其采访时，他坦承他与另一同犯一起在澳门赌场共输掉了至少一半赃款。
The Chinese officials who gamble here lose mostly at baccarat, the game of choice in Macao, but they also lose at blackjack, poker and a dice game called Fish-Prawn-Crab. And even though many of them are neophyte gamblers, they often bet thousands of dollars on a single hand.
重庆一名党宣部门的领导，被控侵吞公款共计2400万美元。新华社对其采访时，他坦承他与另一同犯一起在澳门赌场共输掉了至少一半赃款。
A 2008 study of 99 high rollers from mainland China showed that 59 had some sort of state affiliation: 33 were government officials, 19 were senior managers at state-owned enterprises and 7 were cashiers at state businesses. They were typically men, between 30 and 49 years old, and lived in mainland areas close to Macao.
2008年一项对中国大陆99名大赌徒的调查显示：其中59名与政府有千丝万缕的联系；33名是政府官员，19名是国企高管，另有7名是国企出纳。这些具有代表性的赌徒都是男性，年龄介于30—49之间，在大陆临近澳门的地方居住。
The government officials reported losing an average of $2.7 million each, according to the study, which was conducted by Zeng Zhonglu, a professor at Macao Polytechnic Institute. State managers lost $1.9 million each, on average, and cashiers dropped an average of $500,000. Most said their gambling careers lasted less than four years before they were found out.
澳门理工大学教授Zeng Zhonglu的这项研究显示，政府官员人均输掉270万美元，国企高管人均输掉190万美元，出纳为50万美元。他们中多数承认，从开始赌博到事发不足四年。
Their losses at the tables bankrupted at least 10 companies. An editorial in the Beijing Youth Daily said gambling by public officials "threatens the safety of the national treasury," though it is unclear just how much public money has been gambled away.
他们在赌桌上至少输掉了10家公司。北京青年报的一名编辑说，官员赌博“严重威胁国库安全”，目前尚不清楚究竟有多少国有资金被输掉。
"I doubt even the Chinese government knows," said Desmond Lam, an expert on Macao and Chinese gambling who is currently a senior research fellow at the University of South Australia. "Still, the figure is likely to be very substantial, at least in the hundreds of millions so far.
正在南澳大利亚大学做研究的专家Desmond Lam针对澳门和中国的博彩业表示，“我不确定中国政府是否清楚，但这些数字是千真万确的，就目前来说，至少数以亿计。”
"And if you include the undetected money, it must be higher."
“如果加上未统计进来的金额，这个数字可能更高。”
China had tried repeatedly to clamp down on gambling by public officials but had never had much success until hitting on the idea of limiting visas. The new visa regulations, which went into effect last summer, limit mainland officials to just one trip every three months, and for no more than seven days, and have been highly effective, gambling analysts and scholars say.
尽管中国不断重申严惩参与赌博的官员，但一直没有取得什么效果，直至限制签证办法的出台。新的签证制度，自去年夏天开始执行，限制大陆官员每三个月才能去一次澳门，每次停留不得超过7天。博彩业分析人士和学者指出，这一制度取得了显著效果。
"It has been a very, very serious problem, but it's better now," said Zeng, the author of the study on high rollers. "The mainland government has strict controls over officials coming to Macao."
“这是一个很严重的问题，但现在已经好多了，”高管赌徒的研究学者Zeng Zhoulu 说，“大陆政府已经严控官员来澳。”
But along the way, the restrictions have helped turn Macao's boom into something of a bust, a connection that was underscored on Monday, when the stocks of Macao casino companies plunged by a fifth after Beijing announced that it would retain the visa controls. Share prices of the companies are down more than 80 percent on average from their highs a year ago.
但与此同时，这些限制也让澳门的繁荣经济开始衰落。周一的一个迹象值得关注，澳门博彩公司的股票在北京宣布继续执行签证限制之后下跌了1/5。这些公司股票价格从去年最高点已经平均下跌了80%以上。
Casino bosses, tour operators, shop owners, restaurateurs and hoteliers say they are feeling the pain from what Samuel Yeung, the manager of the landmark Hotel Lisboa, calls "the tightening control of mainland China."
赌场、旅游公司、商店、餐馆和酒店表示，他们从“大陆严控”中感到切肤之痛，这一说法是澳门地标葡京酒店的经理Samuel Yeung透露的。
Gambling revenues are plunging and luxury shops are empty. Soaring hotel and apartment towers stand half-finished. Thousands of construction and casino workers have been fired. Last month at the Venetian, half the singing gondoliers on its indoor "Grand Canal" were abruptly fired.
博彩收入锐减，豪华商场空无一人，在建的摩天酒店中途停工，数千名建筑工人和赌场员工失业。上个月，威尼斯赌场里，原来哼着“雄伟运河”船夫小调的员工有一半被无情辞退。
"The government is saying Macao is going too fast and we need to cool it down," said Davis Fong, a business professor and director of the Institute for the Study of Commercial Gaming at the University of Macao. He cited a freeze on new projects and tighter regulations on the territory's casinos.
政府认为澳门发展太快，我们需要给它降降温。”澳门大学商学教授、博彩业研究中心主任Davis Fong这样说。他证实了政府对新项目的冻结以及对该地区赌场的严厉约束。
It is as if the gold is running out in the Klondike.
一切都像金子在克朗代克河里流失一样。
"It's not so much the global downturn that's having an effect on Macao; it's the visa restrictions that are having the most impact," said Anil Daswani, an analyst in Hong Kong who follows the gambling industry for Citigroup. "Clearly there was way too much capital coming into Macao, and the mainland is trying to cool the economy.
全球金融危机并没有对澳门造成太大影响，反倒是签证控制带来了更大的影响。”香港一位名叫Anil Daswani的分析人士这样认为，他一直研究博彩业对城市的影响，“很明显，过去有太多热钱进入澳门，现在大陆正努力给它降温。”
"But it's definitely worrying. Volumes are down materially."
“但人们确实担忧，毕竟经济实质性地下滑了。”
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