Emerging Poker Scene in China: Laws, Events, and Venues

China has two very different poker landscapes. Gambling is strictly prohibited in mainland China, where organised events operate around poker’s competitive and sporting elements. In Macau, casino poker is legal and regulated, with most of the city’s reliable action now concentrated in the integrated resorts of Cotai.

For tournament players, Sanya has developed into the main destination in mainland China. The city is the longstanding home of the CPG Championship Finals, an annual competition that attracts thousands of qualifiers from across the country.

Mainland China: Poker as an Organised Mind Sport

• The Legal Position: Article 303 of China’s Criminal Law prohibits organising gambling for profit, operating a gambling house or making gambling a profession. Conventional cash poker rooms and casino-style tournaments are therefore not permitted in mainland China.

• The CPG Model: China Poker Games (CPG) structures its events around online qualification, advance registration and organised tournament competition. Local players qualify through online satellites, while international players can access selected events through packages provided by official CPG sponsors.

• Sanya and Sports Tourism: The Howard Johnson Resort Sanya Bay is the home of the annual CPG Championship Finals. The festival combines tournament competition with accommodation and activities around Hainan, supporting Sanya’s wider sports-tourism ambitions.

• The CPG App: The official app manages online practice games, qualification, registration, tournament information, seat allocation and results. It is part of CPG’s event system rather than a conventional real-money poker platform.

Sanya: The Home of the CPG Championship Finals

Sanya has become the centre of large-scale tournament poker in mainland China. The tropical city hosts the flagship CPG Championship Finals each August, with local players qualifying before travelling to Hainan.

The Main Event has attracted more than 3,700 entries at each of its last four editions, including 4,211 in 2025. The 2026 CPG Championship Finals runs from August 19 to 28 at the Howard Johnson Resort Sanya Bay.

Sanya also hosted the 6th Asian Beach Games in April 2026, bringing athletes and visitors from across the continent to Hainan. The event formed part of the city’s wider effort to combine international sport with tourism, a model CPG is also supporting through its annual Championship Finals.

Macau: Poker Moves Toward Cotai

Macau operates under a separate legal and regulatory system from mainland China. Live poker is permitted inside licensed casinos and overseen as part of the city’s regulated gaming industry.

Macau has six gaming concessionaires under agreements that began in January 2023. The number of individual casinos and poker rooms can change, but the city’s main poker action has increasingly moved away from the Macau Peninsula and into Cotai.

Wynn Macau Goes Dark: The Texas Hold’em area at Wynn Macau on the peninsula has been inactive since late January 2026, with the tables removed during Somuchpoker’s most recent check.

The Venetian Macao: The Venetian remains one of the most reliable destinations for cash games in Macau, with more tables and generally more consistent action than the city’s smaller rooms.

MGM Cotai: MGM offers regular cash games and has become an important tournament venue. Game availability and waiting times can change, so players should confirm the latest information directly with the venue.

Major Poker Events in 2026

MPT Macau Poker Open, March 20–29: MGM Cotai hosted one of Macau’s first major tournament festivals of 2026, bringing a large regional field to the Cotai Strip.

MGM Poker Classic, June 26–July 6: The 11-day festival took place at MGM Cotai, with its MPT Main Event attracting 788 entries.

CPG Championship Finals, August 19–28: The flagship event of the Chinese domestic tournament calendar returns to Sanya for ten days of competition at the Howard Johnson Resort Sanya Bay.

Players should always check the latest festival schedules and contact individual venues before travelling, as poker room opening hours, available games and tournament dates can change.

Online Poker in China

Online Poker Legislation in China

Online gambling is also illegal in China, making online poker games essentially dead in the country. There are no Chinese owned or operated poker sites.

Despite this, players have found ways and means to play online. And online operators are becoming more innovative in their offerings by not having “real money” transactions but instead use alternatives that can be converted to cash.

In early 2018, it was rumored that China was considering allowing online gaming, a lottery or sports betting on Hainan Island.

But in June 2018, to the general surprise, a major crackdown – known as Chinese Black Friday -, occurred in China. The government banned all online poker applications, removing them from App Stores, and going as far as forbidding the promotion of Poker on any Social Media. This is a major issue for the Live Event Promoters too, considering that for their Sanya Event, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) had the players qualified through the Tencent Poker app, with satellites running for months leading up to the event.

The Chinese have been well accustomed to getting around censorship, and the use of virtual private networks (VPN) to access the internet is very popular in general because of the Greatwall firewall.

Live Poker in China

Live Poker Legislation in China

Gambling in China is absolutely illegal.

According to Article 303: “Whoever, for the purpose of profit, gathers people to engage in gambling, runs a gambling house or makes gambling his profession shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or public surveillance and shall also be fined.”

This has been reinforced by President Xi Jinping in 2014 when he declared war on gambling which has affected the whole of the mainland as well as its SARs like Macau & Hong Kong.

However, as gambling is in the culture of the Chinese, locals have found means and ways to be able to gamble without having to violate the law. This especially holds true for the game of poker.

Despite being illegal, this has also not prevented the organization of big live poker tournaments in China. The mainland’s first high-stakes NHLE poker tournament was held in December 2012 at the MGM Grand, Sanya located in Hainan province. In 2014, the Asia Pacific Poker Tour made Beijing one of its stops at the Star Poker club for a 10-day long festival, reinforcing the idea that China could carry the hopes of seeing another poker boom, with a population strong of 1.4 billion souls. In December, 2017, it was WSOP’s turn to organize their very first event in Sanya, Hainan at the Shangri-La Resort & Spa.

Live Poker Venues in China

Foreigners and Chinese are allowed to enter legal poker clubs which are few in China.

Because of the government’s strict rules on gambling, numerous unauthorized games do happen but farther away from the metropolis and far from the eagle eyes of the police. It is said that the more luscious games have moved to Changsa in the Hunan province. The games there are said to be so profitable that it has been named “Little Macau.”  But the risks of getting caught in an illegal game are high in China with the penalty of grave fines and imprisonment.

The Beijing Poker Club (BPC), which was established in 2012, is the longest running and the only legal poker room in Mainland China.