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World Cup to spur huge soccer betting wave in Asia
May 03, 2002 03:56 AM ET
By David Lawder
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's first soccer World Cup later this month will bring the region prestige, excitement and a huge gambling windfall worth billions of dollars to cash strapped governments and organised crime.
While it is difficult to pin down precise estimates, Internet betting shops, backroom bookies and government-run sports lotteries across the region are lining up for their share of the take from the 64 match tournament that begins on May 31.
"This is the first World Cup in Asia. The level of demand will be unprecedented," said Michael Carlton, Chief Executive of Victor Chandler Worldwide, Britain's largest independent bookmaker. "It will be in the billions of (U.S.) dollars."
However, he said as much as 90 percent of the totals bet by Asians will be through illegal sources, with only 10 percent from licenced gambling concessionaires and offshore Internet operators, creating a windfall for organised crime.
The World Cup, hosted by Japan and South Korea, also features China for the first time, drawing the attention of its 1.3 billion people and prompting the government to take its first steps toward legal gambling by launching a soccer lottery to draw funds away from illegal oddsmakers.
Soccer is fast coming of age in Asia, thanks largely to satellite television. Weekend league games from Britain, Spain and Germany slot nicely into Asia's prime bar hours, making big-screen soccer broadcasts a must for any pub to draw a crowd.
Manchester United, probably the most popular club in the region, has built a huge following, with a pub and souvenir shop in Singapore and top star David Beckham immortalised in a gold statue in a temple outside Bangkok.
While the sport and certainly gambling have mass appeal in Asia, not all governments are content to let soccer betting flourish.
NO LICENCE, NO (LEGAL) BETS
In gambling-mad Hong Kong, the government is poised to ring in the World Cup by making wagers with offshore bookmakers and Internet gambling sites illegal, in part to stop the siphoning away of hundreds of millions of dollars in gambling revenues from the territory's sole licenced horse racing and lottery operator, the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Some observers view the bill that would amend the territory's gambling laws as a first step towards creating a licenced, Hong Kong-based, soccer betting system possibly run by the Jockey Club.
But Internet gambling chains say the bill will simply drive soccer betting further underground, leaving the profits to triads, other organised crime syndicates and loan sharks.
Carlton estimates that one in seven Hong Kong males between 18 and 55, or some 300,000 people, will bet a total of more than US$100 million on the World Cup, mostly illegally.
ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY
For their part, Hong Kong police have adopted a "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal bookmaking and are exchanging information with their counterparts in Macau and in China's Guangdong province to crack down on triads and sophisticated betting syndicates.
Malaysian police also are targetting Hong Kong bookmakers who have set up shop in the mainly Muslim country, arresting in January six Hong Kong residents believed to be part of a gambling syndicate and seizing betting slips worth some US$79,000.
Bets in Malaysian coffee shops or pubs can run up to 10,000 ringgit (US$2,630) per match, and loan sharks offer easy money to gambling addicts.
"They never force you to take the money but do you expect a cat to ignore the fish being dangled in front of it?" said a Malaysian social activist. "The number of loan defaulters increases dramatically during the football season."
A survey by Bangkok's Assumption University released in March estimated that some 400,000 of Thailand's 63 million population would lay bets worth around 9.37 billion baht on World Cup matches.
National police chief Sant Sarutanond in March proposed delaying live telecasts of World Cup games by half an hour to tackle illegal gambling. His comments caused a public outcry and he later said he meant the idea as a joke.
Macau, which subsists on gambling and has the region's most sophisticated licenced soccer betting operation -- tycoon Stanley Ho's Macau-slot.com -- plans the opposite tack, making live broadcasts of all 64 World Cup matches free on local television with commentaries in both Cantonese and Portuguese.
CHINA FEEDS BETTING PASSION
China, having experienced rapid recent wealth creation and an insatiable demand for gambling opportunities, last year started a soccer pool lottery system in which punters guess the winners of 13 European league matches.
According to the government's lottery research centre, the market for lotteries in China will reach 84 billion yuan (US$10.12 billion) by 2010, a massive five-fold increase on last year's sales, it said.
Shops selling the two-yuan tickets have sprung up all over Shenzhen and other major cities and the state run China Daily newspaper says the Soccer Lottery has produced over 40 millionaires.
Much of this is aimed at drawing funds away from illegal gambling channels, which have been blamed for a recent match-fixing scandal in China's domestic professional league.
However, an even bigger longshot may be China itself winning the Cup. Current odds on British bookmakers William Hill's website place the mainland as a 750-to-one shot.
Joint favourites are current World and European Champions France along with Argentina, both listed at four-to-one.
May 03, 2002 03:56 AM ET
By David Lawder
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Asia's first soccer World Cup later this month will bring the region prestige, excitement and a huge gambling windfall worth billions of dollars to cash strapped governments and organised crime.
While it is difficult to pin down precise estimates, Internet betting shops, backroom bookies and government-run sports lotteries across the region are lining up for their share of the take from the 64 match tournament that begins on May 31.
"This is the first World Cup in Asia. The level of demand will be unprecedented," said Michael Carlton, Chief Executive of Victor Chandler Worldwide, Britain's largest independent bookmaker. "It will be in the billions of (U.S.) dollars."
However, he said as much as 90 percent of the totals bet by Asians will be through illegal sources, with only 10 percent from licenced gambling concessionaires and offshore Internet operators, creating a windfall for organised crime.
The World Cup, hosted by Japan and South Korea, also features China for the first time, drawing the attention of its 1.3 billion people and prompting the government to take its first steps toward legal gambling by launching a soccer lottery to draw funds away from illegal oddsmakers.
Soccer is fast coming of age in Asia, thanks largely to satellite television. Weekend league games from Britain, Spain and Germany slot nicely into Asia's prime bar hours, making big-screen soccer broadcasts a must for any pub to draw a crowd.
Manchester United, probably the most popular club in the region, has built a huge following, with a pub and souvenir shop in Singapore and top star David Beckham immortalised in a gold statue in a temple outside Bangkok.
While the sport and certainly gambling have mass appeal in Asia, not all governments are content to let soccer betting flourish.
NO LICENCE, NO (LEGAL) BETS
In gambling-mad Hong Kong, the government is poised to ring in the World Cup by making wagers with offshore bookmakers and Internet gambling sites illegal, in part to stop the siphoning away of hundreds of millions of dollars in gambling revenues from the territory's sole licenced horse racing and lottery operator, the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Some observers view the bill that would amend the territory's gambling laws as a first step towards creating a licenced, Hong Kong-based, soccer betting system possibly run by the Jockey Club.
But Internet gambling chains say the bill will simply drive soccer betting further underground, leaving the profits to triads, other organised crime syndicates and loan sharks.
Carlton estimates that one in seven Hong Kong males between 18 and 55, or some 300,000 people, will bet a total of more than US$100 million on the World Cup, mostly illegally.
ZERO TOLERANCE POLICY
For their part, Hong Kong police have adopted a "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal bookmaking and are exchanging information with their counterparts in Macau and in China's Guangdong province to crack down on triads and sophisticated betting syndicates.
Malaysian police also are targetting Hong Kong bookmakers who have set up shop in the mainly Muslim country, arresting in January six Hong Kong residents believed to be part of a gambling syndicate and seizing betting slips worth some US$79,000.
Bets in Malaysian coffee shops or pubs can run up to 10,000 ringgit (US$2,630) per match, and loan sharks offer easy money to gambling addicts.
"They never force you to take the money but do you expect a cat to ignore the fish being dangled in front of it?" said a Malaysian social activist. "The number of loan defaulters increases dramatically during the football season."
A survey by Bangkok's Assumption University released in March estimated that some 400,000 of Thailand's 63 million population would lay bets worth around 9.37 billion baht on World Cup matches.
National police chief Sant Sarutanond in March proposed delaying live telecasts of World Cup games by half an hour to tackle illegal gambling. His comments caused a public outcry and he later said he meant the idea as a joke.
Macau, which subsists on gambling and has the region's most sophisticated licenced soccer betting operation -- tycoon Stanley Ho's Macau-slot.com -- plans the opposite tack, making live broadcasts of all 64 World Cup matches free on local television with commentaries in both Cantonese and Portuguese.
CHINA FEEDS BETTING PASSION
China, having experienced rapid recent wealth creation and an insatiable demand for gambling opportunities, last year started a soccer pool lottery system in which punters guess the winners of 13 European league matches.
According to the government's lottery research centre, the market for lotteries in China will reach 84 billion yuan (US$10.12 billion) by 2010, a massive five-fold increase on last year's sales, it said.
Shops selling the two-yuan tickets have sprung up all over Shenzhen and other major cities and the state run China Daily newspaper says the Soccer Lottery has produced over 40 millionaires.
Much of this is aimed at drawing funds away from illegal gambling channels, which have been blamed for a recent match-fixing scandal in China's domestic professional league.
However, an even bigger longshot may be China itself winning the Cup. Current odds on British bookmakers William Hill's website place the mainland as a 750-to-one shot.
Joint favourites are current World and European Champions France along with Argentina, both listed at four-to-one.