The police in Singapore have arrested 18 people who were all participating in an illegal sports betting ring, having several million dollars in revenue on a monthly basis. The arrests comes just under a month before the world cup in Brazil is about to start and has been done to send a clear signal to other illegal bookmakers.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspects are believed to have received illegal soccer bets amounting to an estimated SG$8 million (US$6.4 million) in the past two weeks alone,” The police said to the press. While they did not reveal the nationalities of the arrested people, they did inform us that 16 are women and two are men.
The police seized computers, mobile phones, detailed documents of betting history and banking information as well as SG$1.4 million. “Bookmakers and bettors who assume that they can hide behind the anonymity of the Internet to commit criminal offences should think twice,” Kenny Tan, Deputy Assistant Commissioner said and added “The police will find them and prosecute both bookmakers and bettors alike to the fullest extent of the law.”
Should the arrested people get convicted for having run an illegal sports betting ring, they can look forward to fines between SG$20,000 to SG$200,000 and up to five years in prison for their crimes. However compared to the amounts of money that one can make from running an illegal bookmaking business in Singapore, the fines are not really a lot.
Singapore is full of wealthy businessmen that loves to gamble, which makes the underground sports betting rings thrive. They simply love betting on the biggest matches in the world from football, cricket, tennis, basketball and motor racing.