Billion-dollar underground market
One weekend evening, on Thap***.tv - a website that directly smuggles international sports events, especially football - reported dozens of matches with the majority of spectators. On this illegal website, there are also continuous advertisements for betting such as "competition schedules, rankings of top tournaments, housework with full information".
Preventing sports betting and football betting advertisements is a problem for authorities. This also shows that the underground market for Vietnamese sports betting is very large.
In the period of 2024-2025 alone, the police force has continuously dismantled dozens of online football betting rings with a scale of hundreds, thousands of billions of VND. Typically, in September 2025, the Criminal Police Department informed about breaking a VND4,500 billion fishing ring with 25 arrested subjects. Previously, at the end of August 2025, Bac Ninh Police dismantled a ring worth more than 400 billion VND. These figures are just a fraction of the iceberg, because in fact, the amount of money flowing into foreign betting websites could be much larger. If legalized, the State will not only be able to control but also collect large taxes, reinvest in sports and social welfare.
However, it was not until January 2017 that a Decree on betting and betting was issued for the first time. That is Decree 06/2017 providing detailed regulations on horse racing, dog racing and international football betting business.
In August 2018, when the Law on Physical Education and Sports was passed by the National Assembly, in Article 67a, the issue of betting and betting was also legalized.
Even though there are Laws and Decrees, they cannot be implemented. Reasons stem from many shortcomings: Regulations on bidding to select pilot enterprises are not in accordance with the old Bidding Law, the betting limit is too low (maximum 1 million VND/day), legal procedures are cumbersome, and there is a lack of effective supervision mechanism. As a result, the legal market did not form, while the illegal market exploded.
Creating conditions to exploit the sports betting market
In April 2024, the National Assembly Standing Committee issued Resolution 1035, requiring the completion of the legal framework for the lottery, betting, and casino sector by 2025 at the latest. By September 2025, the Ministry of Finance had drafted a new decree to replace Decree 06. This is the "golden" time for the Government and the National Assembly to boldly decide, to implement legal betting.
In the draft, the Ministry of Finance makes very strong changes compared to Decree 06/2017. In particular, the proposal to increase the maximum betting price per day from 1 million to 10 million VND is also in place, along with that, only allowing 1 enterprise to pilot international football betting business for a period of 5 years.
To participate in betting, the Ministry of Finance recommends that players must open an account at a betting business. All betting, payment, and reward activities must be done through the betting account to ensure player identification and transaction control.
The bonus payment rate depends on the betting ratio and maintains the planned bonus payment rate at a minimum of 65% on ticket sales revenue for each betting product.
The method of paying bonuses varies according to revenue with the rate of paying the plan built by the enterprise at the minimum level of 65% on ticket sales revenue for each betting product.
Regarding the scope of betting, the Ministry of Finance proposes that matches and tournaments allowed for betting business must be organized by FIFA, a member of FIFA; does not include the electronic football championship (eSport Football) and does not include matches and tournaments organized by the Vietnam Football Federation. For businesses participating in this market, the Ministry of Finance proposes that only 1 business is allowed to pilot football betting and must be permitted by a competent authority.
It is time to eliminate the thinking and concept of football betting as gambling, unhealthy, negative. We can completely manage it if we have clear criteria and regulations, Associate Professor, Dr. Ngo Tri Long told Lao Dong.
