Soccer fans throng into a shopping mall in Hong Kong to watch the opening ceremony and the first game of the 2010 World Cup held in South Africa Friday. Many shopping malls in the city will provide live game broadcast to shoppers during the tournament, in the hope of boosting their sales. Tan Daming / China News Service

As the first match in the 2010 South Africa World Cup kicked off Friday, hundreds of police officers, prison guards and gambling addiction counselors were out in force to try to curb a mania for soccer betting.

The Ping Wo Fund is trying to get the message out to young people, hosting a one-day soccer carnival at the Southern Playground Saturday. There'll be game booths organized by 20 schools and associations. There'll be friendly matches between police, local celebrities and lawmakers.

Betting on soccer games became legal in Hong Kong in 2003. It's become popular enough to cause concern. Statistics point to a rising trend of runaway gaming, especially among youth.

Although police seizures from illegal soccer bets fell from HK$223.3 million in 2007 to HK$125 million in 2008 and HK$39.7 million in 2009, a quarter of the government's gambling treatment centers' annual quota had been filled within the first two months of the year, with some 1,500 people seeking help.

Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing has pledged a funding increase of 15 percent for the city's four treatment centers. That will increase funding to HK$11 million.

During the month-long World Cup Tournament, the government's Ping Wo Fund, chartered to provide preventative and remedial measures to address gambling related problems, will spend HK$6 million on publicity. Half the sum will go to NGOs - with the aim of helping problem gamblers curb or kick their habits.

Fund chairman Yau Wing-kwong said roughly 70 percent of the 1,500 who sought help at treatment centers were under 25, with 14 percent under 15. One in ten was already bankrupt.

An earlier survey of 286 teens by the Gamblers Recovery Center found 30 percent said they tried gambling before they were 10 years old.

The Center's supervisor Leung Shek-kwong said the gaming bug usually catches one in ten youths. He expects this month's games to push that number to one in five.

On the tail of those old enough to hold a credit card, police from the Commercial Crime Bureau, Narcotics Bureau and Triad Bureau will also be combing through bank, credit card records and Internet service provider data to tackle gambling at offshore websites, which even if sanctioned in its home country is still illegal in Hong Kong.

Authorities also are clamping down on prison punters. The Correctional Services Department reports a three-fold jump in illegal gambling during the last World Cup in 2006, with 313 cases.

Predicting a similar trend this year, the department is deploying anti-gambling teams and stepping up surprise checks in an attempt to unravel elaborate systems where bets are placed in code and often wagered in cigarettes.

China Daily

(HK Edition 06/12/2010 page1)