Organized gambling on horse races might return to China next year for the first time since the ruling Communist Party seized power in 1949, the official Xinhua News Agency said Friday.

The central government has approved regular horse racing in the central city of Wuhan in Hubei provincem, and is considering allowing gambling on the races in 2009 on a trial basis, Xinhua said.

It is illegal to gamble in mainland China. The communists deemed gambling a major vice along with opium when they came to power, and made a priority of eliminating them.

Popular in pre-communist China, horse racing was banned by the communists, but started to reappear during the 1990s, Xinhua said