Soccer is the most popular sport in Asia. This is attributed to the satellite television broadcasts of several league games such as English, Italian, Spanish and German soccer league. Sport and gambling are two different industries, but they are always being mixed and thus have created both enormous controversy and enormous appeal here in Asia.

Asia's first soccer World Cup 2002 brought new excitement and betting sentiment to the region. Inevitably, a huge gambling windfall worth billions of dollars will go to the pockets of governments and to organised crime.

All sorts of betting channels, namely Internet betting shops, backroom bookies and government-run sports lotteries across the region, shared the turnover from this 64 match tournament. Despite a large betting turnover, only an estimated 10 percent of the total bet is through licensed gambling concessionaires and offshore Internet operators; the remaining 90 percent would be managed by illegal sources and therefore it creates a windfall of organised crime.