South China Morning Post – Hong Kong’s multibillion-dollar illegal gambling habit has been built on sports betting but increasingly sophisticated online bookmakers – operating from servers around the region – are now offering punters a dizzying array of betting options. Bookmaking experts point to sites like Citibet, which offer odds on foreign exchange movement, commodity prices and on how stock markets will move. “The world’s troubled financial system has often been put down to so-called ‘casino banking’ and the stock markets likened to casinos. Well here it is for real: illegal bookmakers offering bets on those very markets,” said an…

SCMP – Hong Kong police are launching a month-long operation against illegal soccer betting in the run-up to the World Cup. Working in conjunction with Interpol in nine other countries, local police are coordinating efforts to eliminate the multimillion-dollar problem. Police in the city also say they are being thwarted in attempts to stamp out illegal soccer betting as most syndicates operate online, on the mainland and offshore. Superintendent Dan Ng Wai-hon, from the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau, said yesterday that criminals had moved to the mainland and regions such as South America and Taiwan since local authorities got…

The government of Australia’s Queensland state will study proposals for two new Chinese and Hong Kong casino backed projects, challenging Echo Entertainment Group Ltd. (EGP)’s hold on the local gambling market. Aquis at the Great Barrier Reef Pty and ASF Consortium Pty will be allowed to submit detailed plans for new resorts in Cairns and the Gold Coast, the state’s Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney said in an e-mailed statement today. Echo has the only casino in the Gold Coast and would have to reduce investment in the site if a second project was allowed in the city, former Chief Executive…

Hong Kong Football Association chairman Brian Leung Hung-tak appealed to local authorities to relax betting rules and allow more top-quality matches into the market. This could boost the game in the country with English Premier League clubs in Hong Kong for its pre-season Asia Cup. Leung’s call for new rules is driven by the potential financial benefits of allowing local betting on games between overseas teams in the city. This in itself would be controversial as staging games for betting purposes only would open the sport, already fighting a battle against match-fixers, to more ethical questions and potential corruption. In…