Vietnam busts $1.2 bln gambling ring

By Quoc Thang   November 22, 2022 | 06:42 am PT
Vietnam busts $1.2 bln gambling ring
Police officers stand behind men arrested in a gambling ring in HCMC, November 22, 2022. Photo by VnExpress/Quoc Thang
Officers from the Ministry of Public Security have broken up an online gambling ring that collected VND30 trillion (US$1.2 billion) of bets in three years.

The police raided 15 locations in HCMC and the neighboring Dong Nai Province on Tuesday to arrest 14 people, who will be investigated for gambling and organizing gambling.

Initial investigation found the operation was run by some Vietnamese living in Cambodia. Seven managers based in HCMC supervised betting accounts and managed a gambling network spread over many cities and provinces.

The ring has operated for around three years, receiving bets worth more than VND100 billion a week on Sobet.com, Bong88.com, and SV288.com for football, cockfight and lottery games.

By the time it was busted, the ring had received bets worth nearly VND30 trillion.

Gambling is illegal in Vietnam, except at a certain casinos which are mostly only open to foreigners, and there are often intense police raids every World Cup season.

An online football betting ring worth over VND1 trillion ($40.3 million) in northern Vietnam was busted by police last week, just days before the 2022 World Cup kicked off in Qatar.

 
 
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