There’s a big demand for more gambling in India, with few choices available to the public. Pocket52, an Indian online poker site, is ready to meet that demand after completing a new seed funding round.

The Bengaluru-based poker site was founded earlier this year by Nitesh Salvi, Saurav Suman, Debashish Bhattacharjee and Satyam Verma. They boast a cryptographically secure Random Number Generator, termed RNG+, which they advertise as having passed “diehard” tests, which should give players some comfort.

The seed funding round was run by the early-stage venture capital firm Speciale Invest. Arjun Rao, General Partner at the firm, was jubilant in the press release, saying “We are excited to support Pocket52 in their vision.  Their vision to bring technological innovations to the Indian online gaming sector. Of course, poker is their first game. They have a strong product differentiation around the game-play. Their integrity levels, fairness and high-quality player engagement, strengthens our confidence in them.”

The investor group included pro poker players Abhigya Sagar and Pranjal Batra, amongst others.

China’s illegal gambling penalties are about to get a lot stiffer for individuals who organize informal gambling rings on the WeChat social media platform.

On Christmas Day, Zhou Jiahai, deputy director of the research office of China’s Supreme People’s Court, issued a directive spelling out “five guiding cases for severely punishing cybercrime.” Zhou (pictured) said it was the “unshirkable statutory duty of the judiciary to severely punish cybercrime in accordance with the law and effectively maintain cybersecurity.”

Among these five cases was one involving four individuals who sought to profit “by inviting people to join the WeChat group to attract gamblers and by guessing the results of the game website, etc.” Another case involved the use of WeChat’s popular ‘red envelope’ money transfer service to facilitate gambling on the social network.

Zhou said individuals who engage in such activities will now face the same punishments as those who operate illegal casinos under Article 303 of the Criminal Law. Individuals convicted under this section of the law face stiff financial penalties and up to 10 years behind bars.

A former K-pop star could end up behind bars due to her Macau casino activity potentially violating South Korea’s laws governing ‘habitual’ gambling.

This week, South Korean media reported that the actress/singer known professionally as Shoo, who formerly belonged to first-wave K-pop girl group S.E.S., could face up to three years in prison if convicted on charges that she lost KRW790m (US$707k) gambling in Macau casinos over a two-year period.

In August, Shoo confirmed that she was the subject of a civil action brought by two private lenders who claimed the singer had failed to repay KRW600m she was lent in June for gambling purposes in Paradise Co Ltd’s foreigners-only Paradise Walker Hill Casino in Seoul.

South Korean law prohibits local residents from gambling in any domestic casino other the Kangwon Land resort north of Seoul. However, Shoo was born in Japan and holds an overseas permanent resident card, which allowed her to cross the Paradise casino threshold.