Regulations on horse racing and international football betting business: Not just for revenues

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Illustrative photo.

Pilot international football betting business for 5 years

The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Vuong Dinh Hue required functional agencies to comply with the contents of a report to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly about the following issues, such as: Do not use photos or results of international horse racing and dog racing to determine results of betting business in Vietnam; the time for pilot international football betting business is 5 years; the distance from the location of betting ticket sales to schools and public recreation areas for children to be not less than 500 m; the specified time to start and end up betting will not be determined by betting business enterprises.

Enterprises which are allowed to distribute betting tickets by telephone and other telecommunication means must meet the requirement of at least 5 years of experience in operations of ticket distribution by digital method in Vietnam. The distribution of betting tickets on the internet is not regulated.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested the drafting agencies to refer the draft decree on casino business to apply advertising regulations and conditions for the players. In addition, the draft decree should be amended with clear conditions, criteria and principles for the Ministry of Finance to regulate the list of specific betting services and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism deciding to list international football matches. Besides, there is a need to specify the content of the ticket distribution methods, betting business areas and ticket agents for international football matches in the draft decree.

For the bid of projects of construction of horse racing and dog racing facilities including business activities of horse racing, dog racing betting and selected enterprises in the field of international football betting business, conditions, procedures, investment policy decisions, investment certificate and others shall comply with the provisions of the Investment Law and the Law on Bidding. The draft Decree should define the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism more clearly, especially in the specialized management of international football betting business.

Step by step implement the pilot

In plans building regulations and decrees on business conditions on the basis of Investment Law in 2014, especially Decrees providing guidance for current investment business activities which have not been regulated by the law yet, the Decree on horse racing, dog racing and international football betting business drafted by the Ministry of Finance has been studied on the basis of other international regulations which are relevant to Vietnam. The

Decree will be carried out step by step, together with other management solutions to amend and supplement.

Clearly, in Vietnam, the business activities of horse racing, dog racing and international football has not been regulated by the law yet. Therefore, the current activities of illegal betting business not only cause huge losses in foreign currency but they also create many adverse consequences. Thus, if we apply the “whole model” of foreign regulations on betting business in Vietnam, it is unlikely to be successful.

For example, the draft has defined a minimum of 10,000 vnd for each bet and a maximum of 1 million vnd for each player per day in international football betting business, which is too low to attract players. In fact, another kind of betting business is the lottery with only 10,000 vnd. Therefore, if the decree is adopted and comes into effect, the revenues of betting business will be really high with such a large number of participants.

In fact, betting business should only apply to some international football tournaments which appointed by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to enhance the role of professional management agencies. The main reason is that Vietnam Football is quite complex with many negative matters, so it is difficult to conduct betting business for Vietnam Football.

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Legalizing betting business for players is to remove these illegal activities for such a long time and to increase revenues for the State budget. Most of experts in this field agreed with the draft Decree, however, the experts also stated that horse racing, dog racing and international football betting business is a new type of business. Therefore, the pilot should be carried out gradually. The profit is the most important thing we can achieve, but we need a long time to verify the pilot. Because if we spread betting business immediately with a large scale, we will never control the gambling.