Online punters wager over €40m on World Cup
Paddy Power, the country’s largest bookmaker, has taken €20m in online and telephone bets since the tournament began. Paddy Power expects another 100,000 bets to be laid before and during Sunday’s showdown between Italy and France.
Live betting, or Betting-in-Running, has become the phenomenon of the World Cup. The facility wasn’t available in 2002, but this time round punters have been waging serious cash during games, either online or via telephone accounts.
“We’ll see another seven-figure sum put down before Sunday’s game,” said a spokesperson.
“We expect about 70,000 separate bets before the final and another 30,000 during it. The growth of telephone and internet betting is a huge cause of concern for Gamblers Anonymous Ireland. GAI holds meetings every week in 30 locations across the country, and seven nights a week in the capital.
A spokesman warned: “There are more people coming into us all the time suffering from internet gambling addiction. It takes time to destroy a life, to end a marriage or lose a home. It doesn’t happen overnight and I think it will possibly be another two to three years before we see the real extent of problems caused by online gambling.
“It’s probably because there is so much money around now, but over the last three years there are a lot more young people, men in their 20s, coming to us for help. It used to be a middle-aged thing,” the spokesman said.
The online betting industry is worth almost €800m a year in Ireland, but there is no regulation, because the industry is internet-based. And because most of the companies involved are registered offshore, the exchequer is losing hundreds of millions of euro a year. In April, Justice Minister Michael McDowell announced plans to shut down casinos, which circumvent a legal ban by operating as private members clubs.
Minister McDowell said he was worried about criminals using such clubs as a front for money laundering.
There are about 20 casinos operating in Dublin alone, but their volume of business pales into insignificance compared to Ireland’s online betting industry. Yet there are no plans to regulate the online industry.
A Department of Finance spokesman said: “It falls between a whole number of stools. There is actually no regulatory authority so if, for example, you go into one of these online poker places and put €2,000 on your credit card and find out it’s a scam, well there’s no place for you to go.”
Not surprisingly, Paddy Power, registered in the Isle of Man, supports self-regulation.
“Even if the Irish Government were to bring in regulation it would be very hard to see how they would have jurisdiction over what are effectively foreign companies.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
