Asia The Next Big Online Gambling Frontier? Think Again
Among the big discussions at this year's Casino Affiliate Conference in Amsterdam (CAC), online gambling and Asia. Marc Lesnick, the conference organizer and big time Asia enthusiasts predicted that his Macau Casino Affiliate Conference this coming November would rival the one in Amsterdam rather quickly.
"Timing" was Lesnick's abrupt answer when asked why Asia has not emerged as a force in the industry after years of speculation on the topic.
Some of the largest online gambling companies have attempted and failed miserably at moving into this market.
Finding interpreters to translate dozens of variations of languages is the easy part. Getting beyond cultural barriers and fraud issues is yet another.
For example, one of the most prominent and perhaps best marketers in the online gambling sector spent millions to enter the Asian market. Resources was hardly a problem. They had the interpreters, they had the bank processing, they had every integral detail in place to tackle the Asian market head on.
What this company did not have is the ability to overcome fraud and in the end they lost nearly every penny initially invested.
"It was really bad," said the head of marketing for this online casino, who wished not to have his company identified. "It was the biggest waste of money and effort ever. Good luck to anyone who thinks they can crack this market."
If fraud isn't a big enough issue, there are also cultural barriers to overcome per Asian nation and this is hardly an easy task.
One of the most interesting discussions on this matter came from the Two Plus Two posting forums.
Here is what one astute forum member had to say about Asia and online gambling:
1. The typical Japanese person doesn't have enough spare time to sit at home playing online poker. They only go home to sleep, if that. Most Japanese do their gambling in Pachinko parlours located on the street near their office.
Additionally, Internet Cafes in Japan are extremely expensive by any standard, and especially by Asian standards.
2. Gambling is completely illegal in the Kingdom of Thailand. The web pages of most online gambling sites are blocked by the government net filter, although if you bring the client install file with you on an iPod (or get someone to send it to you over MSN) then you can usually access the site. You cannot withdraw money from most poker sites from a Thai IP, although you can play on Party the last time I tried (1 year ago, it might be different now).
3. Asians like to gamble, but most Asian countries have never heard of Poker. Casinos in Macao don't spread poker.
4. Gambling is also illegal in China (apart from in Macao). Those online gambling sites that aren't blocked by the great firewall of China typically experience timeouts and connection issues due to the firewall.
So that leaves Hong Kong and South Korea that have cheap, reliable internet connections and no gambling bans.
Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines don't currently ban online gambling - but all have strong religious groups (Islam in Singapore/Malaysia, Catholicism and Islam in the Philippines) that would be utterly opposed to any form of gambling boom in those countries.
China would probably allow online gambling ONLY on sites that were wholly owned and run by the Chinese government. They aren't stupid enough to let some foreign company take all those profits offshore. On the plus side, any theoretical Chinese-owned Gambling site would probably allow foreigners to play there (but you'd probably need to learn to read Chinese).
In other words I wouldn't hold your breath.
The Thai government is believed to no longer block IPs for the majority of online gambling sites, though it remains to be seen whether the industry can still crack that particular market wide open.
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Christopher Costigan, Gambling911.com
Originally published May 5, 2007 6:07 am ET Updated September 21, 2007
