The anxiety. The nail biting. The sleepless nights. These are symptoms of World Cup fever. But there is also an insidious side to it – gambling addiction. “World Cup season was no problem for us in earning money,” ex-gambling addict David Liong, who is in his 40s, said. He recalled the time when he acted as a bookie, estimating that he earned about RM100,000 during the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France. He reckoned that he had racked up about RM1mil in debt in his 20 years of gambling. “It is the attitude that gambling addicts have – we always want to increase our wager, we are arrogant and we think of ourselves as god,” he said.
It was when his wife told him that she wanted a divorce that he sought help and finally kicked the habit. Another ex-addict, Daniel Chen, maxed out five credit cards and took personal loans to feed his gambling habit. Chen, who owned a business at that time, even gambled away money given to him by clients. “I lost a few hundred thousand ringgit in the 2006 World Cup, but I didn’t feel the pinch because I thought I could earn it back,” he said, adding that he had owed about RM1mil in 2013. The gambling led to another sin – drugs. It culminated in him losing consciousness one night in a motel. “My wife drove with our one-year-old daughter in the middle of the night to look for me,” said Chen, 36. “When she found me, I started scolding her and asked why she made it such a big deal. Looking back, it is one of the biggest regrets of my life,” he said.
Chen, who is a Christian, said he finally sought the help of his pastor who recommended him to a rehabilitation centre. One of the counsellors at the Gamblers Rehab Centre, Frankie Tiw, said people were more tempted to start gambling during special occasions like the World Cup. “It happens once every four years, so people get very excited and decide to give it a try because they fear they are missing out,” he said, adding it could form an addiction later. “With the Internet, it gets easier for people to get into the habit too,” he said, adding the centre recently had a case of a 14-year-old girl who lost RM200,000 to online gambling. During the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Malaysian police launched a nationwide crackdown on illegal betting syndicates called Ops Soga. About RM120.76mil in bets were estimated to be wagered during the 2014 World Cup, with about 828 raids conducted nationwide.
Betting on football matches is illegal in Malaysia. Even those who play on betting websites that are legal in other countries have committed an offence. According to Bukit Aman’s Secret Societies, Gambling and Vice Division (D7), the latest Ops Soga has already led to the arrest of 77 suspects nationwide between June 15 and 21. The department carried out 54 raids during that period. Statistics from the department showed that RM194,981 had been seized so far.
