Vietnam’s online gamblers have lost a few more homegrown but highly illegal options as the authorities still can’t provide a decent legal alternative.

On Tuesday, authorities in Hanoi and Quang Binh province announced the arrests of multiple individuals suspected of involvement in two separate illegal online gambling operations. Each of the two gambling rings reportedly handled wagers worth over VND1t (US$43m) before the authorities pounced. 

The Hanoi bust resulted in the arrest of 16 individuals, including the three suspected ringleaders, who each put up around VND300m in February 2019 to establish a support operation for a number of intermediary websites that steered gamblers to sites based outside the country.

As with previous Vietnamese busts, gamblers purchased ‘points’ from third-party sites that could be used as wagering currency. The ring established branch offices in several cities and was reportedly a sufficiently large operation to require staff operating out of high-end condo suites to work shifts to ensure round-the-clock support for nearly 4,000 gambling clients.