The ASEAN Gaming Summit 2019 roundtable discussion on Asia sports betting gave a world tour on the topic, and gave insight on how the Asian region really has an outsized influence on the market.

The discussion was led by John English, managing director of Sports Betting & Technology for Global Market advisors. Contributing quite a lot to the discussion were Pablo Bermudez, operations manager for Betcris, and Michael Maerz, managing director Asia for Sportsradar. Also joining the discussion was Paul Fox, CEO of LeTou.

Fox noted right away that there’s a lot at stake for the sports betting market with the political outcomes of the UK. Regardless of how Brexit goes, if Labour returns to power and puts in more stringent advertising gambling advertising laws, that could affect how the industry promotes itself quite a bit. He stressed though that Asian advertisers, who can often be noticed on sideline LED panels, may be exempt if the government recognizes they are not targeting UK punters.

The discussion then swung to China. The Chinese market, especially for lotteries, is still heavily restricted, but one participant noted that black market operators are getting rich flouting those laws.