The Legal Situation of Sports Betting in Vietnam

 

While discussing in the hall about the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Sports, many delegates were interested and had different opinions on sports betting.

Submission on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Physical Education and Sports was submitted to the National Assembly. In particular, the Government said that recently, the Government allowed betting in some sports such as horse racing, greyhound racing, and piloting international football betting which are currently possible when you log in to Kubet or other major betting sites.

However, in practice, there is still illegal betting based on the results of some sports without the permission of a competent state agency.

Therefore, in order to limit illegal betting, it is necessary to add regulations prohibiting “Taking advantage of fitness and sports activities to organize illegal bets and bets”.

Speaking at the conference hall, Dinh Thi Kieu Trinh (Nghe An) said that betting in some new sports is piloted in Vietnam. There is no concept of illegal wagering in the current legal system, so additional legislation regulating this issue is necessary.

However, delegates proposed to consider clarifying the concept and scope of illegal bets in the relationship between acts handled for administrative violations according to regulations. At the same time, additional provisions to ensure the feasibility of applying the law.

 

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Nguyen Thanh Hai (Tien Giang) stated that Decree No. 06/2017/ND-CP dated 24-1-2017 on horse racing, dog racing, and piloting international football betting took effect from 31-3-2017, so it takes time to summarize and evaluate thoroughly before deciding to include in the Law to ensure feasibility.

Moreover, betting and betting activities are complex, sensitive issues, potentially many risks to social order and safety, so it is necessary to have thematic research, impact assessment reports, then summarize. For the above reasons, delegates suggested that the regulation should not be included in this amendment.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Anh Tri (Hanoi) said that sports betting is a popular phenomenon in many countries with many different sports such as football, cockfighting, horse racing, and dog racing. In fact, many countries manage this activity quite well, without causing social disorder. In Vietnam, although not allowed, many places have the phenomenon of sports betting. Congress should take this issue seriously. Sports betting is probably a hobby. Of course, this hobby will be worsened when gambling can affect social order and safety, so this activity needs to be managed.

“We don’t support gambling but we need to support the management of pleasure so that it doesn’t deteriorate, be corrupted, abandoned. We have rules to disallow but are generally ineffective,” said delegate Anh Tri.

In January 2017, the Government issued Decree No. 06 on the business of betting on horse racing, dog racing, and piloting football betting, but the decree is not a law anyway. Delegate Anh Tri said that this is an opportunity to add, amend and agree to include sports betting in the law.

“It’s not that it’s hard to ignore, it’s forbidden. Please don’t let sports betting in the law be forbidden, in fact still sneaky. Please don’t let the issue of sports betting sit in place for another decade. I believe that if the organization is good, limiting the downside, this activity brings many benefits to the country, to the society in terms of taxes, creating pleasure”- Said Nguyen Anh Tri.

Earlier in the day, the delegates discussed in the hall about the competition law project (amended) and voted to approve the Law on Forest Protection and Development (amended).