Betting amounting to tens of billions of baht expected during Euro 2020
Football betting is expected to intensify during the European Football Championship 2020, currently underway, the Centre for Gambling Studies (CGS) said on Saturday, while warning parents to keep an eye on their children.
The month-long Euro 2020 ends on July 11.
The centre said a study with Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Economics and Research Centre for Social and Business Development showed that more than 30 million people in Thailand are gambling addicts.
"Of the total, 700,000 people are new gamblers who are seeking the easiest way to make money amid the pandemic," the centre said.
A study by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation showed that 2.4 million people were engaging in football betting, and 82.6 per cent of them were children.
In Euro 2016 alone, 16.8 per cent of gamblers were children who claimed that they were invited by friends or they got carried away by the tournament's atmosphere.
Kasikorn Research Centre and the Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce revealed statistics of funds flow during previous European Football Championships:
▪︎THB33 billion in 2004
▪︎THB41 billion in 2008
▪︎THB78 billion in 2012
▪︎THB57.8 billion in 2016
Both centres also forecast that Euro 2020 would generate funds flows in tens of billions of baht.