澳门：作为中国腹地的一个小城市的市长，李为民（音译）刚开始时很单纯，只是在澳门附近玩五条龙、中国厨房和超级快乐财富猫等老虎机游戏。
但他很快就开始尝试其他游戏以及更高的赌注。为了满足高额的赌本需求，他开始把手伸向市政预算和几家他控制之下的房地产融资公司，并日益频繁前往五光十色的赌场。
43 岁的李为民（音译）在审讯中说：“我从那些地方借用或挪用钱很容易”。根据《中国日报》报道，他输了1200万美元，被判处20年徒刑。
政府检察官说，越来越多的共产党和政府官员掠夺国家资金、公司资金和市政国债到毗邻广东省的澳门尝试自己运气，李为民就是其中之一。
大输家中的许多人都被送进监狱，至少有15人被处决，也有些人自杀了。这对中国政府来说已成为丑闻，不得不限制澳门的旅游签证。
尽管赌博在中国大陆仍然是非法的，但是在澳门赌博是合法的。葡萄牙在1999年12月把澳门归还中国后，自2004年以来，澳门这个弹丸之地迎来一个旅游建设热潮，而且澳门有75％的税收依赖博彩业。
现在澳门世界上最大的赌博市场，每年的博彩收入甚至超过拉斯维加斯赌场和大西洋赌场收入的总和。在澳门总共有31个赌场，其中的澳门威尼斯人是世界上最大的赌场。
繁荣的背后暗藏危机，有专家如此表示。此危机不仅来自全球经济危机的影响，也来自北京政府对赌博行业的打击。这个问题在中国是个敏感话题，因此政府和党的领导人在过去一直拒绝任何采访要求。
据中国官方通讯社新华社报道，重庆当地一名共产党官员，是宣传部负责人，被指控挪用共2400万美元。他自爆与另外一个同事在澳门的葡京娱乐场输掉了一半赃款。
在澳门赌博的中国官员大多选择百家乐游戏，此外他们也玩二十一点，扑克和一种名称为鱼，虾，蟹的骰子游戏。即使他们大众不少是新手赌徒，但他们往往一下注就数千美元。
2008年一项对来自中国大陆的99名狂赌者的研究表明，其中有59名与政府有关联。这其中33名是政府官员，19人是国有企业高层，7人是国有企业收银员。他们通常是男性，30至49岁之间，居住在靠近澳门的大陆地区。
根据这项研究，这些政府官员人均输掉270万美元。这调查研究是由澳门理工学院的教授曾中路（音译）进行。国家管理者人均输掉1.9亿美元，收银员人均输掉50万美元。大多数人说他们的赌博生涯持续了四年的时间才被发现。
他们在赌桌上至少损失掉10家公司。《北京青年报》发表社会评论说，公职人员赌博“威胁国库的安全”。虽然目前还不清楚到底有多少国有资金已经被输掉。
“我不确定中国政府是否清楚，但这些数字是千真万确的。”南澳大利亚大学的一个高级研究员在研究中国的赌博情况时如此表示，“不过，这个数字可能是非常庞大的，至今至少有亿万。”
“如果包括未被发现的钱，这个数字可能更庞大。”
中国曾试图多次打击公职人员赌博，但从来没有取得很好的效果，直到实施限制签证政策以后才取得一些成效。新的签证规定去年夏天开始生效，内地官员每3个月只允许到澳门旅行一次，每次停留时间不得超过7天。赌博分析家和学者说，这一制度已经高度见效的。
“公职赌博一直是非常严重的问题，自从对内地政府官员来澳实行严格控制以后，情况好多了。”一个狂赌者研究者表示。
但与此同时，签证限制制度限制了澳门的发展。上周一的一个迹象值得关注，北京宣布实施签证管制之后，澳门赌场公司的股票下跌了五分之一。这些公司的股票在上一年平均价格最高下跌80％以上。
赌场老板，旅游经营者，店老板，餐馆和酒店经营者表示，中国大陆的紧缩控制使他们感受到了切肤之痛。
博彩业收入大幅下滑，豪华商店空无一人。正在施工的酒店和公寓楼的被迫停止，数以千计的建设工人和赌场工作人员已被解雇
“政府认为澳门过去发展得过快，现在需要给它降温。”澳门大学商业博彩研究学会主任戴维斯如此说到。他证实了政府对新项目的冻结和对赌场更严格的法规约束。
译文：
Chinese Officials Gamble, And Their Luck Run Out
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
"And if you include the undetected money, it must be higher."
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.
"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."
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.
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."
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.
"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.
