Greater Taichung police on Tuesday said they have launched an investigation into a report that gamblers are betting tens of millions of dollars on the life expectancy of terminally ill cancer patients.
The investigation comes after the Chinese-language Next Magazine reported that gamblers in Greater Taichung — including the families and doctors of cancer patients — are placing bets as high as NT$1 billion (US$34.5 million) on when a patient will die.
The report said the trend is served by betting stations disguised as non-profit organizations, where punters are paid three times their bets if the targeted patients die between one and six months of a prediction.
“We’ve been looking at the media report,” a Taichung police officer said, declining to provide details.
Punters are allowed to visit cancer patients before placing their bets, which start at a minimum of NT$2,000, losing to the bookies if their selected patients die within a month, the magazine said.
The expose identified one road, which it claimed had more than 10 betting shops on it and is reportedly now known as the “death gambling street.”
“These offices are the betting stations, even though they can hardly be judged from their appearances,” the magazine said.
A staff member at one of the suspected organizations contacted by China Television Co (中視) denied that it was a front for a betting station and said the magazine’s report was exaggerated.
He said the group helped poor families pay for funerals that they would otherwise be unable to afford.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
RSS