Few serious scholarly studies have been undertaken regarding the gambling fanners ofKwangtung in the late Ch'ing dynasty. There are two principal reasons for this. First, mostscholars have heretofore focused on prominent mercantile forces that played an active rolein history, such as the Shansi merchants, the Hui-chou merchants of Anhui, the saltmerchants of Yang-chou and the Co-hong merchants of Kwangtung, as well as othermerchant groups that displayed signs of growing vitality. Consequently, scholars have paidcomparatively less importance to the gambling farmers of the late Ch'ing. Secondly, in thepast gambling was censured by public opinion because it was considered to have acorrupting influence on public morals. Since gambling was regarded as taboo it was seldommentioned. Therefore, source materials on gambling operations are rare, making the studyof this area a difficult undertaking. This article aims first to fill an existing historiographical gap and, more importantly, toemploy the case study of gambling operations in Kwangtung, with particular reference tothe responses they elicited from both government and society, to provide a betterunderstanding of official-merchant relations during the late Ch'ing dynasty. The mostserious obstacle to conduct this study is the paucity of available written materials.Therefore, the author limits himself to threading together available fragments of historicalinformation in order to outline the essential features of gambling operations in late Ch'ingKwangtung. It is hoped that this study will encourage further debate regarding this issue. In addition to discussing the large investments of gambling farmers within Kwangtung,this article also examines the activities of Kwangtung natives outside of their province.