Apple removes gambling, lottery apps from Chinese App Store

Tech giant Apple has removed thousands of gambling apps from its China-facing App Store, but Chinese authorities appear to believe that the purge was far from complete.

On Sunday, the state-run Global Times media outlet announced that Apple had removed over 2,000 gambling-related apps on August 9, following that up with the removal of over 500 apps related to “fake lottery tickets.”

However, the report claimed that “loopholes” remained that allowed app developers to continue providing updates and push notifications to users who’d already installed the apps on their mobile devices. The report urged Apple to “cut the account link between illegal apps and the App Store” after these apps are purged from the site.

On Saturday, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) reported that Apple had actually purged 25,000 apps – although that figure is stated only in the headline, as the article itself cites only the 2,000 and 500 figures repeated in the Global Times article.