The Age – Asian gambling houses believed to be behind Victoria’s match-fixing scandal are generating huge profits from an illegal betting market estimated by Interpol to top $500 billion a year.
One of the world’s top sports investigators, Chris Eaton, said the money involved dwarfs the turnover from sport itself. He said the sport is under unprecedented attack from criminals and opportunists who conspire to manipulate the results of competitions around the world, to frequently win tens of millions of dollars a day.
”A vast majority of this money is being invested into the black and grey betting markets of south-east Asia,” said Mr Eaton, a former head of security at FIFA and now director of the International Centre for Sport Security in Qatar.
”What is apparent is that there is a clear absence of effective and collective government control on international gambling that deters match fixers and organised criminals.”
Asia has long struggled with illegal gambling and match fixing, with high-profile cases in South Korea, China and Malaysia in recent years.
One shadowy figure living in Singapore called ”the boss” and the ”capo” by his accomplices is suspected of fixing dozens of matches in Europe.
Indonesian punters represent a large part of illegal betting, experts said. Other experts said that about 50 per cent of interest in the telecast of European football in Asia is because of betting.
