Thailand, Malaysia stake out early lead in Euro 2016 illegal betting arrest tourney

Asian authorities are off to a roaring start in their bid to stop their citizens from having fun betting on Euro 2016 football matches.

Over the weekend, Thailand police announced they’d arrested 1,192 individuals since Euro 2016 kicked off on June 10. The overwhelming majority of these were individual gamblers, but the police did arrest 15 bookmakers and 13 online gambling operators.

Among those arrested for organizing online betting activity were four South Koreans, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, given the hordes of Korean betting operators who in recent years have come to view Thailand as a preferred jurisdiction in which to set up shop.

Over in Malaysia, the country’s Euro 2016 ‘Ops Soga’ operation has arrested 60 football bookies in the tournament’s first week, compared to around 100 such arrests during the whole Euro 2012 event. The latest busts include a sophisticated setup in Kuala Lumpur that targeted both locals and football bettors in neighboring Singapore.