(CNN) — Police have crushed an bootleg betting associate in Macau for allegedly holding a homogeneous of US$645 million in bets on World Cup matches.
It’s believed to be a biggest ever raid on an unlawful football bookmaking pole in a Asian casino capital, according to police.
The gambling ring used 3 hotel bedrooms to take internet and phone bets from around a world, a initial coordinator for a Macau Judiciary Police told CNN. One gambler placed a gamble valued during around US$5 million, initial investigations found.
Police arrested some 22 people from mainland China, Hong Kong and Malaysia in a raid on Thursday. Two of a suspects, from China and Malaysia, were believed to be a ringleaders of a syndicate.
Officers seized money value around US$248,000, along with 17 computers, during slightest 10 dungeon phones, and betting slips.
A second gambling associate was destitute in a same hotel hours later, with military impediment 4 Chinese group early Friday morning. According to police, a second betting ring took around US$645,000 in bootleg bets on World Cup matches in a singular day.
Police have not expelled a name of a hotel.
READ: The dim side of Asia’s gambling Mecca
The arrests are partial of a cross-border debate to moment down on bootleg betting in Macau, Hong Kong and China’s southern Guangdong range around a World Cup. Authorities from a Pearl River Delta segment are also auxiliary with Interpol and 7 other Asian nations to tackle unlawful gambling.
More than half of a world’s bootleg sports bets are placed in Asia, according to a new study by a International Center for Sport Security and Paris Sorbonne University.
Since a contest began, Hong Kong military have arrested a sum of 39 suspects over bootleg gambling and seized betting slips value around US$10 million, according to a South China Morning Post.
The city’s authorised gambling authority, a Hong Kong Jockey Club, is a second biggest betting user worldwide. The bar said unlawful sports betting in Hong Kong generated an estimated HK$500 billion (US$64.5 billion) final year — roughly 4 times a volume a Jockey Club incited over in a same period.
In Singapore, 15 people have been arrested for allegedly receiving bootleg football bets homogeneous to US$640,000 in a past dual weeks, military said Monday.
Police in Malaysia have also arrested dozens of suspected bootleg bookmakers given a World Cup began.
WATCH: Interpol investigates World Cup betting