Home ›› 01 Nov 2022 ›› Front
Nowadays, advertisements of various online gambling and betting sites and apps appear on the screen as soon as one enters a social media site or any kind of site for that matter using a smartphone or a computer.
In the name of trading at home and abroad, people are running these gambling sites using Facebook profiles, pages, groups, websites and/or mobile-based encrypted apps. Most of these sites and apps are operated from abroad and their addiction has spread beyond cities to remote areas of Bangladesh like an epidemic.
People concerned have said that many people are becoming addicted to online gambling due to the easy affordability and availability of credit and debit cards.
In the meantime, many criminal groups/gangs are laundering a massive amount of money abroad using this method and opportunity.
Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) recently blocked 331 gambling sites from the country’s domestic network.
Law enforcement agencies say that many people have been arrested on different occasions as gambling is still illegal in Bangladesh. BTRC may have blocked local access to such sites but gamblers are still accessing those using Virtual Private Networks or VPNs.
Talking to The Business Post, Professor Dr Shabbir Ahmed of Dhaka University’s Computer Science and Engineering Department said that online gambling platforms are very difficult to stop. “Gamblers can easily shift to another platform when one is closed because gambling may be banned here but it’s legal elsewhere.”
Although BTRC and law enforcement agencies are working to stop them, it’s difficult to achieve that goal without public awareness, he added.
Traps on social media
Numerous eye-catching advertisements, luring people with shortcuts to becoming a millionaire, can be seen on Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms nowadays.
These ads show off luxurious items, including massive amounts of money, home, car and expensive smartphones, as prizes. And to win them — one will only have to do online trading or try their luck in gambling.
There are hundreds of pages, on Facebook or other platforms, which are known for hosting gambling. Solar Valley, Cash River Slots, Club999 Online Gambling and Velki are some of these. Most of them are operated by people abroad.
Meanwhile, more than 50 betting websites, including bet365.com, BDT10.com and betscore24.com, are also operating and accessible through digital platforms for online gambling.
BTRC shuts them down from time to time after receiving information, but the gamblers manage to use VPN to access these pages and sites as they move to new or alternative domains.
Requesting anonymity, a gambler told The Business Post that he became addicted to online gambling like it was a drug addiction. He has lost over Tk 1 lakh by gambling. However, he has managed to stop gambling after realizing his mistakes.
How gamblers register
In a notification on October 10, BTRC said that gamblers need to register on the gambling apps and spend money to buy chips. Money can be spent using credit or debit cards.
As it’s very easy to get and afford such cards nowadays, many people are falling into the trap of online gambling after trying their luck once and becoming addicted.
Apart from mobile apps, gamblers also participate in online games or gambling directly through various websites or domains. They have to open an account and register for this as well.
Then, one has to deposit a certain amount of money through domestic or internationally acceptable debit or credit cards or other means. They can even use local mobile banking platforms like bKash, Rocket and Nagad to make payments, according to BTRC.
It said some criminal groups are taking advantage of this system and using this opportunity to smuggle and launder crores of taka out of the country.
Although in-person gambling has decreased in the country due to raids by law enforcement agencies, the trend of online gambling is gradually increasing, leaving youths addicted and families struggling financially, said BTRC.
Muhammad Zahidul Islam, head of public communication at Nagad, told The Business Post that they are not involved in remitting or money laundering since their app does not offer remittance services.
“But we monitor transactions regularly. If we see any kind of suspicious transactions, we create a list of suspects. Later, we send it to law enforcement agencies and Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU). Then we take further measures based on their instructions,” he said.
331 sites closed
BTRC has so far shut down 331 online gambling sites. It said some criminal groups have used these sites to launder massive amounts of money out of the country.
The regulator has also reported to the Google authorities to shut down 150 apps related to online betting that are available on Google’s Play Store.
Google has already blocked 14 apps from the Play Store and is working to verify the complaints against the remaining apps before taking the necessary steps to block them.
The BTRC notification added that it has also reported to Facebook and YouTube to close 27 Facebook links and 69 YouTube links that promote gambling websites and apps and training materials.
In response, both platforms have blocked 17 links each and the process to shut down the others is underway.
Money laundering
Velki is one of the online gambling sites where a gambler has to put up Tk 100 as per betting unit in a game, which takes the total amount of money gambled during a full match — which could be a football game, cricket match, horse racing or any type of casino games — to at least Tk 6 crore.
This site hosts betting on more than 100 such games and matches, which means transaction of approximately Tk 600 crore takes place through Velki every day.
If this type of transaction takes place on one site alone, then what would be the total amount of money that goes or comes through 331 gambling sites, wonders BTRC.
CID on August 31 arrested three men from Cumilla’s Chauddagram. They were operating as Bangladeshi agents of the gambling site Betwinner. The agency in a press release said these agents use the money exchange app Binance to convert taka to US dollars and send them to different countries. The trio reportedly laundered several crores of taka this way before their arrests.
The Detective Branch (DB) of police also arrested three more people in Meherpur in January over their alleged involvement in online gambling.
Police said the three men have been making illegal money by gambling on the Best Win24 website and through unauthorised e-transactions using mobile banking without permission from Bangladesh Bank (BB).
On February 19, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s DB officials arrested three men, including two agents of an international gang associated with online gambling.
This gang, which operates gambling sites from Russia, Malaysia and India, has laundered Tk 20-30 crore earned from online gambling in the past year.
Gambling pushing up crimes
There’s a saying when it comes to gambling — the house always wins. It means that the odds of individual players winning are such that overall the establishment — the house — always makes a profit.
Experts and law enforcers said gamblers start feeling lucky after they win one or two times. The trap is designed in such a way that gamblers get addicted to betting even if they lose after winning money the first couple of times. However, getting addicted to gambling only leads to losing everything.
To manage money for gambling, many people have lost their ways and ended up committing various types of crimes, including mugging, robbing and even killing.
On the evening of March 13, an official of Seven Rings Cement Company was murdered by his driver at his Madhya Badda home in Dhaka city. The driver decided to kill him and steal money and valuables because he was struggling to maintain family expenses after losing his salary on gambling.
On July 3, a young garment factory worker named Sadikur in Narayanganj’s Araihajar lost some borrowed money after betting it on an Indian Premier League match.
To gather more money, he broke into a neighbour’s house, killed a woman and her child, and stole the woman’s gold jewellery. He was later arrested by the Police Bureau of Investigation.
On September 15, at Rupganj, a man named Amanullah died after he was allegedly beaten and forced to consume pesticide by a rival group of gamblers. The man reportedly came under attack after he asked them to pay the money they owed him from gambling. Police said they are investigating the matter.
Incidents like this have become more frequent in different parts of the country in recent times. To gather the money for betting, just like drug addicts, gamblers are getting in violent fights, mugging and robbing, and even killing people.
What experts say
Talking to The Business Post, Centre for Policy Dialogue’s Senior Research Fellow Towfiqul Islam Khan said, “Online gambling does have an impact on the economy. The central bank’s monitoring of this needs to be more organised and strengthened.
“Also, more involvement and accountability of commercial banks is needed. Banks are usually let off with insignificant fines.”
He added that the overall digital and technical capacity of the authorities needs to be increased to prevent such things. “We have to invest more here.”
BB spokesperson Abul Kalam Azad said that the central bank monitors money going to or coming from abroad in line with the rules. “Our inspection teams oversee the payment systems and other related issues.”
BFIU maintains communications with law enforcement agencies regarding gambled money being laundered abroad. As part of regular activities, they coordinate and take help from the agencies if anything suspicious surfaces, he said.
