The Asian police force rivalry over the scale of their 2018 FIFA World Cup betting arrests is nearing a fever pitch as the tournament reaches the quarter-finals.

From the start, Thailand’s national police force has made volume its priority, and deputy police spokesman Krisana Patanacharoen said Wednesday that the authorities had so far arrested 9,420 individuals on World Cup betting charges, roughly 5,000 more than during the entire 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Nearly 8,900 of these detained individuals were ordinary bettors, while another 392 were pinched for hosting gambling events – including 79 online gambling hosts – plus 149 bookmakers’ agents.

Showing a little outside-the-box thinking, Thai authorities also raided a couple retail shops they suspected of supplying much of the technical gear used by some of the busted online gambling operators to bypass the government-monitored internet channels.