Columbus Dispatch – Despite a multitude of legal gambling opportunities — four casinos, five racinos and lottery games — Ohioans continue to find places to gamble illegally. But state investigators increasingly are finding those illegal gambling hot spots, many of which masquerade as parlors for “skill games.” Matt Schuler, executive director of the Ohio Casino Control Commission, said yesterday that his agency is investigating at least three dozen such locations. He said there could be hundreds more in storefronts and strip malls around the state. They are not limited to large urban areas; many thrive in smaller cities and towns….

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…

Hellenic Gaming Commission Executive President, Evgenios Giannakopoulos, stated that the amount of money gained from illegal Greek gambling exceeds the amount of money made from the country’s legal market. The Greek legal gaming market’s profits has shown a decline of about 35 percent from 2009 to 2013, dropping from 8.7 billion euros to 5.5 billions respectively. A decline was also recorded in gross profits where 1.5 billion euros were made in 2013 compared to 2.5 billion in 2009. Official data released by the Greek Commission for the Supervision and Control of Games (EEEP) has shown that profits from 60,000 to…

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…

Police from Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China are stepping up enforcement action against illegal World Cup betting as police from both Special Administrative Regions and from Guangdong province have launched a month-long crackdown on illegal football gambling, Hong Kong Standard newspaper reports. The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil kicks off on June 12 with the final set for July 13. In June 2010, Macau’s casino revenue declined 20 percent from the previous month, a drop that was attributed by some financial analysts to the World Cup keeping some gamblers away from gaming tables and slot machines. Gambling revenue for the…

iGaming Business – A joint report by University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne and the International Centre for Sports Security (ICSS) has revealed that illegal sports betting is responsible for laundering $140 billion (€102.4 billion) of money, accounting for 80% of all betting on sport. The report, entitled ‘Protecting the Integrity of Sports Competition – The Last Bet for Modern Sport’, presents the findings of a two-year research project. The study discovered all sports around the world are vulnerable to match-fixing, which is driven by illegal betting. Although football and cricket were highlighted as the most vulnerable sports, the report also…