I came across an interesting story the other day and wanted to share it with SN. We’re currently visiting family in southern China. The elderly locals pretty much continue to live their lives as they always have like growing vegetables in the field, eating and drinking with friends and of course a little black market gambling.

Although gambling here is illegal, in small villages it’s pretty common to have locally run mahjong, poker and lottery. I guess the social layer of trust is pretty high as they all know each other, and when a problem arises they sort it out as best they can without getting the law enforcement involved.

Anyway, one of our friends who has been away for about a year came back to find her local mahjong game has moved from using cash to digital cash through WeChat and Alipay. She’s not happy!

There’s something exciting about winning a round and physically grabbing the cash on the table. Or slamming a wad of cash on the table to double down on your bet! In contrast, receiving a payment over wechat might be convenient, but it’s not thrilling at all.

Apparently they switched to digital payments so if the cops busted the game, the evidence of them gambling would not be instantly visible. They believe it’s safer to avoid a bust by using digital money over cash.

I just thought that this is an interesting situation that threw my idea about the privacy of cash out the window. Still I think just a little extra police work going through the individuals phones would reveal that they were in fact gambling. But it is interesting to think about different mediums of money to use for different situations.