Three men arrested over casual online gambling in Malaysia.
PENANG, Malaysia – A factory manager and two engineers were arrested for using free Wifi access to carry out illegal online betting on football matches and casino games at a popular coffee outlet at E-Gate here.
The trio, aged between 30 and 32, were picked up in a police raid at the outlet at 4pm yesterday. The raid was conducted after police received a tip-off.
“We received information that the outlet was crowded with people abusing the free Wifi access to conduct online gambling activities,” said a source.
“Many of the patrons just grabbed their laptops and ran out when they spotted the raiding party,” the source said, adding that the owner was warned not to let patrons use the free Internet service for illegal activities.
Gaming Industry worth $144 billion by 2011
A new report by PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the global gaming industry will be worth as much as $144 billion by 2011. According to the paper, the growth will be driven by the wave of new casinos being developed across the world, mainly in the Asia/Pacific region.
China casinos and gambling will head the group with an expected 15.7 per cent increase in revenue to $30.3 billion. Revenue in the US is expected to grow by 6.7 per cent a year, to $79.6 billion in 2011, and maintain its status as the world’s largest casino market.
Gambling revenue in the regions of Europe, the Middle East and Africa will see a somewhat smaller increase of 1.9 per cent, rising from $25.2 billion to $27.8 billion.
Korea To Crack Down On Online Casino Gambling
The Korean Ministry of Information And Communication has announced that it will toughen its monitoring measures for online gambling including on casinos and poker rooms.
The Ministry said that it would be working with related Government agencies including the Ministry of Culture And Tourism, the National Police Agency and the Information And Communication Ethics Committee in a crackdown on online gambling, which is illegal in Korea.
The South Korea Ministry of Information said that the Ministry of Culture And Tourism, which recently revised the Game Industry Promotion Act to ban currency-trading websites, would be strengthening the Game Rating Board’s screening process when approving a game site.
The National Police Agency reported recently that the number of online gambling sites it requested be blocked by the Ethics Committee grew to 291 from 76 last year.
‘Illegal online Togel Singapore gambling sites sign up members through a secret IP address at a specific time. And such sites are hard to find because they are increasingly good at evading IP tracking,’ said Lee Tai-hee, Director of the Information Safety Team at the Ministry Of Ministry.
The Ethics Committee, which has the authority to ask local network providers to block illegal websites, said that it will request that police investigate three Korea casino online gambling sites and block 21 currency-trading game sites that were uncovered recently.
