Vietnam on the Brink
Reports over the past week that Vietnam has high incidences of illegal online
casino gambling were a bit of a shock to many in the internet gambling industry.
Internet gambling in Asia is all underground because the countries have such an
aversion to this industry, but even so, the Vietnamese market has not been very
widely discussed in the industry as a particularly lucrative market. Even so,
the Vietnamese government indicates that illegal online casino gambling in
rampant in the south where gamblers using a wireless connection in internet
cafés and sidewalk restaurants are able to circumvent blocks on the gambling
sites by accessing WiFi coming out of Cambodia.
Basically, the Vietnamese online casino gambling issue is one that is only going
to get progressively worse if some measures aren’t taken soon – the more
Vietnamese gamblers that use foreign internet casinos to gamble and the more
widespread the pastime the harder it is to track down a source and put an end to
it. Asia is one of those regions where illegal online gambling rings are rarely
worthwhile because of the hefty jail-terms, fines, and possible prison sentences
that are handed down to internet gambling ring leaders.
The latest news out of Vietnam indicates that the government plans to launch an
official investigation into the illegal online casino gambling in the coming
weeks. There are apparently several ways that internet gamblers are not only
able to access the illegal sites, but then cash out their winnings – it all
depends on your bankroll but Vietnam has a huge number of underground gambling
rings that have been left untouched by the police and politicians until just
recently. |