Martin Purbrick, director of Purbrick & Associates, who consults on risk related issues with a special focus on sports betting and integrity, speaks with Asia Gaming Brief Managing Editor Sharon Singleton about the boom in illegal online gambling during the pandemic, the risks for sports integrity and how regulation can help, but that not all regulation is created equal.

The highly-infectious Indian strain of the covid-19 virus has infiltrated both Australia and Macau, both seen as having done well in terms of low covid-19 numbers in the past.

China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand are currently the largest illegal betting markets in Asia, and all of them have "limited or ineffective legal betting markets that cannot compete with the illegal market", the Chairman of the Council on anti-illegal betting & related financial crime for the Asian Racing Federation (ARF), Martin Purbrick, told AGB in an interview.

Thailand's Justice Minister Thawee Sodsong has met with the Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong in Beijing to discuss deeper collaboration, including crack downs on online gambling.

Higher sports betting taxes lead to increased prices for gamers and ‘inevitably’ drive gamblers to illegal betting markets with better odds but fewer customer safeguards, the most recent Asian Racing Federation (ARF) report states

Last week, the U.S. based trade union, known as the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 501 announced it has sent letters to five U.S. departments demanding a probe into the business relationships that U.S. casino operators have held with former junket operator SunCity and its boss Alvin Chau.

Politics may be behind recent calls by a Las Vegas casino worker union for a federal investigation into U.S. casino operators and their ties with former junket operator SunCity, according to observers of the U.S. and Macau gaming industry.

The death of Macau's junket industry may also result in the loss of between 10-25 percent of its ultra-premium mass and between 5-10 percent of its premium mass business, according to a note from Bernstein Research.

Macau’s junket model is likely dead and the city faces a painful period of economic transition, although the vast amounts of capital that flowed out of China for gambling is still likely to find an exit and online is expected to be the key beneficiary.