Gambling with the law payin
is expected to almost double in size by the end of the decade, according to an October report published by Research and Markets.
And casinos in Cambodia are rushing to get in on the action.
In 2015, the government began granting brick-and-mortar casinos licences to run online platforms for a fee of $10,000 a year.
At the end of 2016, 31 of the 65 casinos operating in Cambodia had web operations, according to Ros Phirun, deputy director of the financial industry department at the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The licences allow casinos to deliver online betting to punters inside the casino’s premises – which are ostensibly off-limits to Cambodians.
Many of these casino websites cater to gamblers abroad, particularly in China, where gambling is illegal.
But online gaming from some local casinos is also available to Cambodians via agents running internet cafés.
This is explicitly illegal under the Kingdom’s Law on the Suppression of Gambling, which outlaws gambling outside unlicensed premises and prohibits working as an agent or running a gambling den.
But the agents are not difficult to find.
In recent weeks, the Post visited 17 internet cafés at random across the capital. All offered accounts: 15 for the gambling website aa2888.com, one for sun2888.com and one for 855Play.com.
Most required a $10 deposit and a phone number to sign up, though one opened accounts for just a dollar. Some had a box on the counter with paper slips, prepared with logins and passwords. Their main cliental were clearly Cambodian.
Through the websites, gamblers can wager on soccer and basketball matches from around the world, Vietnamese and Thai lotteries, currency markets and electronic casino games – such as slot machines – and digital cock fighting, where users can wager on computergenerated matches.
They can also play live casino games including baccarat and roulette against dealers via webcam.
A man answering a hotline for 855Play.com yesterday said the site is run out of two casinos in Poipet and Bavet, and had eight “branches” in Phnom Penh.
Meanwhile, the online casino features for sun2888.com and aa2888.com – by far the most prominent gambling site at cafés visited by the Post – are from the same source.
The live feeds for both sites show dealers, young women in tight red dresses smiling and ready to play.
Behind them, gamblers can be seen wagering at tables. And in the background, emblazoned in gold: The Shanghai Resort and Casino.
“Aa2888 is based at the Shanghai resort,” said a man who answered the website’s help hotline, which is the same number for both websites.
“It’s in Svay Rieng.”
Bordering on illegal
Approaching the Shanghai Resort from the Cambodian side requires a bumpy ride down a pitted road, past rice fields and grazing water buffalo.
Set next to a small crossing on the border with Vietnam in Svay Rieng’s Chantrea district, the venue was opened in 2013. It boasts 40 deluxe rooms, six corner suites, a swimming pool, gym and private karaoke rooms, according to its website.
But the story of the Shanghai’s online gambling operation begins before the construction of its new border-side base.
In 2009, when Prime Minister Hun Sen, citing moral reasons, outlawed gambling outside the Kingdom’s casinos, Shanghai’s current director, Taing Hong; a man previously listed as its director, Phoun Thitieng; and a group of associated businessmen, were running an online sports betting firm, according to Ministry of Commerce filings and information available online.
Dubbed Sporting Live Group, the firm was founded in 2006 and employed 200 people in Phnom Penh and the provinces, according to a Post story at the time.
The prime minister’s edict shuttered popular Cambodian bookmaker Cambo Six – which was linked to former military commander-in-chief and factional rival to the premier Ke Kim Yan.
However, board members from Sporting Live Group, a then-competitor of Cambo Six, were busy branching out.
Hong and linked associates now have interests in a microfinance institution, money transfer service and finance firm (see sidebar).
And though Sporting Live Group as a company was closed after the crackdown, its services were soon revived after talks with the government, according to a manager at the casino, who spoke under condition of anonymity.
“[After the ban], our boss went to the government and they discussed with each other to make the rules for [this] website,” he said, explaining that the online platform was developed by a Chinese ex-Microsoft employee and run from the casino.
“The servers are behind there,” he said, pointing to a nearby wall.
Cutting the losses
As the online dealers worked in the background and punters gambled at tables nearby, the manager laid out the operation.
The Shanghai, he said, runs online betting sites tailored for gamblers in Vietnam, China, Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
For one of its flagship sites, win2888.com, which openly advertises its links to Shanghai Resort and is popular in Vietnam – gamblers can sign themselves up remotely online.
But win2888.com can also be accessed through a network of affiliates – small-time bookmakers who recruit play-
When they crackdown on a large scale, I will tell you to close for one or two days. I get the information from above
ers to the site and get a cut of their losses.
The agent network, meanwhile, is largely conducted through the site aa2888.com, which according to web analysis website similarweb.com, had 873,613 visits between October and December last year, 81 percent from Cambodia, where it’s ranked as the 37th most popular website.
There is also a28i.com – a site dedicated to sports betting, he said.
For aa2888.com, the manager said, the company arranged deals with senior agents in Cambodia and Vietnam who could sign up large amounts of players. In these deals, profits from losses were split 70/30 to the company.
He said he did not know the monthly or yearly revenue from online gambling, though he claimed the operation was one of the biggest in Asia.
“Some generals in Phnom Penh deposit $100,000” he said, before explaining the largest payouts were capped at $50,000.
The person who oversaw agents for aa2888.com in Phnom Penh, the manager said, was related to the Shanghai’s director, Taing Hong.
“It’s his brother,” he said, a claim the Post could not independently verify.