GUANGZHOU: Jail terms and administrative punishments have been handed out to six senior officials from Guangdong who used public money to fund their gambling habits, the provincial commission for discipline inspection said on Thursday.

The heaviest sentence was given to Wu Kuixing, former vice-secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Yunfu City Committee, who was jailed for four years.

While on a cruise in Hong Kong on Jan 1, 2004, he is said to have lost thousands of yuan of public money in a single night.