Macau police smashed an illegal football betting ring described as the “largest” operation of its kind ever uncovered in the casino hub, suspected of taking in wagers topping HK$5 billion (US$645.1 million) in a week.
The bust late last week came amid strengthening efforts on the part of law enforcement across Asia to clamp down on illegal bookmakers during the World Cup.
Macau’s Judiciary Police said in a media briefing on Friday that a multinational syndicate was behind the operation, which operated from three rooms in a local hotel. The 22 people arrested included nine Malaysians, nine mainland Chinese and four Hong Kongers. No Macau residents were among them. The hotel was not identified.
“The syndicate carried out illegal activities during this year’s World Cup, with two arrestees being the masterminds while others recruited customers and garnered bets, mostly via the Internet,” a police spokesperson said.
The wagers involved were “the largest amount … on illegal football in the history” of the territory, police said.
The investigation is continuing into the customer base of the gang, and a search is on for other suspects who may be at large.
Police said the syndicate was “likely” not related to the bust in neighboring Hong Kong earlier this month of a gang that took in an estimated HK$770 million in bets on football and horseracing, according to authorities in Hong Kong and China’s Guangdong province. Twenty-nine people were arrested.
Police in Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China have joined with Interpol to set up a task force targeting illegal bookmaking during the World Cup, which began 12th June and ends 13th July. Similar efforts are under way across East and Southeast Asia, which some experts say account for half the world’s illegal betting on sports. The last few weeks have seen significant underground operations uncovered in Thailand and Vietnam. In Singapore, police busted an operation suspected of taking upwards of S$8 million (US$6.3 million) in wagers in the last two weeks.
Sportradar, an international sports betting monitoring group, estimates the size of the global sports betting market, legal and illegal, at US$700 billion to $1 trillion annually.
