According to Andrew Scott of World Gaming Magazine, the APPT Nanjing Millions, which was being held at the Wutaishan Sports Centre in China, was shut down by police. According to Scott, a sign on the venue’s door read, “Due to the APPT Nanjing Millions tournament being suspected of illegal gambling, the police are now investigating and the event is being ceased. All related staff should go and register at the designated location and cooperate with the police for the investigation.”

No arrests have been made, but according to Scott, “We’re hearing that the office of the tournament organizers has been seized and surrounded by police. Players in the tournament, who had come from all over China to participate, were also nearby looking for an explanation from the organizers, but were told they had disappeared.”

Scott added that World Gaming Magazine and he have been concerned about the prospects of live poker in China for a while: “WGM has long been concerned about live poker events in mainland China, but have been reluctant to voice our concerns for fear of possibly contributing to a situation such as this. Our suspicion has always been that one of these events would be raided, especially given the current political climate in China. Now that it has happened, maybe it’s time to have a genuine rethink of the whole concept of live poker tournaments in mainland China.”

According to PokerStars, which promoted the event, the tournament was sanctioned by the local government through the Jiangsu Provincial Chess Sports Association. Star Poker Club, a “local operator,” organized it. The tournament reportedly had been quite popular too, passing 2,000 entrants. It had a buy-in of about $3,250.

Last year, the Asian Poker Tour was forced to postpone its China stop in Guangzhouafter it failed to receive approval from the Provincial Government in time. However, according to the APT’s website, no event in China ended up taking place.

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