Vietnamese police busted this week another massive online gambling operation as part of a continued effort to curb the proliferation of digital sports betting and gaming activities, which are both illegal in the Southeast Asian country.
On Wednesday, Vietnam’s cybercrime police arrested 22 people for their alleged involvement in an illegal online gambling ring that handled bets of around VND3 trillion (approx. $129 million) this year alone.
More than 100 officers from the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security and the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai conducted raids across 20 locations in the city of Da Nang. Investigators revealed that police also raided the house of the alleged mastermind behind the illegal gambling scheme, Huynh Ngoc Anh.
It is believed that Anh along with his accomplices ran illegal online sports betting, casino, and lottery sites. Some of the domains discovered to have been owned and operated by the recently busted illegal gambling ring were bong88.com, bong88.net, booking88.net, and smartbooking88.net among others. The servers of all of the websites were based overseas.
Players had to open accounts with the websites and buy virtual currency with real money in order to be able to play casino and lottery games and bet on various sports.
Illegal Gambling Operation Went on for a While
Investigators said this week that the illegal online gambling operation had run for a long time before being uncovered and had attracted thousands of gamblers. As mentioned earlier, it processed around VND3 trillion this year.
Earlier this year, police in Hanoi busted an even larger illegal gambling operation. Police officers arrested 16 suspects in a series of raids around the Vietnamese capital, including the operation’s kingpin.
The illegal gambling ring targeted customers from around via a gambling website and an app they could download and use on their mobile devices. Gamblers had to deposit cash through a network of agencies where they could get virtual currency and use it to place wagers.
Hanoi police uncovered hundreds of agents across the city. Gambling customers were also able to cash out their winning bets from those agents and even receive loans on a losing streak by putting up personal assets as collateral. That ring was believed to have processed more than $2.6 billion in wagers.
While Vietnamese lawmakers have taken a softer stance on gambling in recent years, online sports betting and casino-style gaming products are still illegal in the country.
In 2017, Vietnam legalized betting on horse and dog racing as well as on football as part of a five-year trial of legal wagering. It emerged earlier this year that lawmakers are mulling the addition of more football fixtures that bettors can wager on and allowing punters to lay bets over the phone and use eWallets and prepaid phone cards to fund their betting habit.
At present, Vietnamese punters are able to wager on football and racing events only at betting terminals located in retail outlets around the country via direct bank transfers.
As part of a three-year trial plan, the country also recently allowed locals to gamble at a casino on the Phu Quoc Island as long as they are aged over 21 and have a monthly income of no less than VND10 million (approx. $432).
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