Gambling on Euro 2008

07.2.2008 | 4:38 pm | gambling

The European Football Championships  (Euro 2008) may now be done and dusted, with Spain winning the day, but there was a surprising number of bets from countries outside Europe, or without teams competing.

In Thailand, during the tournament a total of $15.2 dollars was placed as bets on football gambling and this has only just become apparent. A relatively small amount of the cash was recovered by Thai Police but 1,098 bookmakers and gamblers were arrested. Betting on football games is illegal in Thailand but there was has been an increase in online betting and also with people receiving “tip-offs”.

There has been seen to be an increase in schoolchildren and young adults betting on football especially on major tournaments such as the World Cup and European Championships, with some children running up about $3000 in debt.  There was even a case of a gambling operator turning up at a school to demand money from a schoolboy.

Arrests were also made in China for football gambling with sites found for online betting. Police swooped on two gambling dens and arrested 4 people, recovering $960,000. Although football gambling is illegal in both China and Thailand, it did not deter people from gambling.

In the UK, even though there were no home teams competing in the championship, it still attracted a lot of interest  with punters £2million up after the opening round . Gamblers have not only bet on the outcome of the games, but total goals scored, top scorer and the total number of yellow cards – which was 144.

Whether or not the favourites won the Championship, it was a success for gamblers in all countries .