Foul!

As published in Malay Mail today By Haresh Deol haresh@mmail.com.my KUALA LUMPUR — The government will not legalise sports betting despite claims the match-fixing threat has moved from Singapore to Malaysia. Finance Minister II Datuk Johari Abdul Ghani said regulating sports betting would not ensure the long-standing menace would be eliminated. “As far as the government is concerned, we are not going to approve sports betting. Simply put, it’s not a sector we’re looking into,” he said. “What assurance do we have that match-fixing will be eradicated if sports betting is legalised? Singapore legalised sports betting, yet they also had syndicates operating illegally. “We can’t be giving out licences just because there is a demand in the black market. That will not solve the problem.” Johari said there were no records or data to show the amount of “illegal outflow” of the ringgit due to sports betting and that figures bandied around were  merely estimates...

Investigators say such gambling operations hire workers to rapidly place thousands of small online bets — maybe no more than $1,000 each — on fixed games. The scattershot of small bets, rather than several large ones, can help hide fixes from monitoring companies in Europe that use computer software to look for unusual wagering. "They employ kids and they employ people in Singapore and Malaysia to do that for them," said Chris Eaton, former head of security for FIFA, soccer's governing body. "They virtually have a sweatshop, if you like, of people with a large number of credit cards and laptop computers, and they punch those things when they are given the green light." Read the full article here . One bookmaker's Malaysian manager, who refused to give his name because of the illegal nature of his business, conceded that the operation was running "on borrowed time." Here's another article of football gambling thriving in Camb...