Everything in China seems big these days. So you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the number of online mobile gaming users is now reported to be 120 million!

That’s more than every man, woman and child in Mexico; more than twice the entire population of Italy. That’s a lot of players playing games on their iPhone, Android or other smart phone devices across mainland China.

Mobile gaming should be differentiated from mobile gambling. 

Gaming refers to all games, playable on mobile phones, including popular worldwide titles like Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, Plants Vs. Zombies, and locally developed games like Tiantian Ai Xiaochu, Find Something, Carrot Fantasy, Fishing Joy, Fishing Joy 2, Stranger Bubble Rabbit, Giant Bubble Battle and Crazy Guess Figure.

As for mobile gambling…these are games of course but the difference is they give the chance to win or lose real money. And yes, live dealer games for mobile are available and offered by quite a few live casinos now.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture isn’t happy that more gambling opportunities are creeping into the broader mobile gaming category. In a recent crackdown, they reportedly ordered 27 mobile platforms including Android and Baidu to clean up Apps offering gambling related content. The focus of their attention is games that offer lottery-style purchase opportunities that help the player win the game. Games that on the surface seem like free games, but really have a gambling element.

An official with the Ministry (Li Gang) did admit that the sheer size of the industry and its rate of growth, in terms of new games and changes to existing games, meant that the task of removing all gambling is an impossible one.

So there’ll probably always be a degree of gambling withing gaming in the regulated App channels/stores.

Additionally, players can easily download software direct from casinos with mobile casino platforms, like M88’s Club88 that lets you play their live dealers on Android.