Woman threatens to blow up local arcade

A businesswoman threatened to blow up a video arcade on Chongming Island over the weekend after she lost 130,000 yuan ($21,147) in three months playing games there, local media reported Monday.

The woman, Gao Hong, entered the arcade Sunday afternoon with a string of firecrackers and several beer bottles full of gunpowder around her neck, according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post. She intended to demand her money back from the arcade's owner.

After Gao failed to find the owner, she began bashing video game machines with a metal rod, the report said. When the arcade's employees moved in to surround her, Gao yelled that she had explosives and threatened to blow up the arcade.

The woman was trembling when she made the threat, the report said. However, she fainted before she could light the explosives. She was taken to the hospital after police arrived on the scene.

Although employees denied there were video gambling machines inside the arcade, authorities have suspended its business, the news portal eastday.com reported.

Gao had been a successful businesswoman until she lost about 2 million yuan when her pickling factory shut down last year, the Oriental Morning Post reported. She began playing games at the arcade in November after a neighbor suggested it was a good place to blow off steam.

In her first three days at the arcade, Gao won 5,200 yuan. Her luck soon turned, however. Over the next three months, she lost 130,000 yuan.

At the end of a four-hour session Friday, Gao's machine crashed. She complained to the arcade's owner that the machine shut down just as she was about to win 6,000 yuan. The owner refused to give Gao her money back and an argument ensued.

The dispute ended with Gao getting punched in the head, the report said.

Her husband took her to the hospital. After she got out, she decided to make another trip to the arcade.