World Cup bookies using college students and professionals

BOOKIES out to make a killing from the ongoing World Cup matches have switched to hiring college students and young professionals as agents as these people are more efficient in dealing with punters.

A student acting as agent for an illegal bookmaking syndicate told Oriental Daily News in a report published yesterday that he expects to pocket RM5,000-RM6,000 from the month-long football tournament – RM3,000 basic pay plus RM2,000-RM3,000 in incentives.

According to the report, apart from rolling out various betting packages, bookies have lowered their minimum bet limits this time around so that everyone can bet, including low-income earners.

But allowing more people to come on board means bookies will have to increase their manpower to handle a bigger volume of traffic.

In football betting where every second counts, bookies can no longer depend on less educated runners like they did before as these less articulate runners tend to argue with clients over small matters or are unable to answer queries by would-be punters and let opportunities to make money slip.

It is learnt that bookies have turned to recruiting college students and young professionals such as accountants and engineers who have no problem communicating with clients and can handle their task efficiently without any training needed.

To avoid detection by the authorities, bookies no longer advertise their “business” on social media. Instead, they resort to wordof-mouth marketing.

A 24-year-old pharmacy student, who spoke to Oriental Daily News on condition of anonymity said he was recruited by a bookie through a friend.

He said in the past, agents were at greater risk of getting arrested as they had to spend a lot of time at eateries recruiting punters, taking bets and answering clients’ queries.