Police crack down on 4,576 World Cup betting sites, arrest 617 bookmakers
Thai police say they shut down 4,576 online football gambling websites during the World Cup period, arresting 617 bookmakers and uncovering more than 20 billion baht in circulation.
Pol General Thana Chuwong, Deputy National Police Chief and director of the Royal Thai Police’s Information Technology Crime Suppression Centre, said on Wednesday that online crime cases in July 2026 showed that fraud involving the purchase of goods and services remained the largest category and caused the highest value of damage.
He added that cases involving fraud through impersonation continued to cause high levels of damage, showing that the problem remains and is still concentrated in familiar patterns.
Police found that bank transfers were the top channel used in both the number of cases and value of damage, accounting for 65.4% of the total.
Thana said this confirmed that criminals continue to rely on mule accounts within the commercial banking system as a main tool for laundering money and moving assets. He said authorities must continue and intensify efforts to crack down on mule-account networks across the system.
He thanked and praised Provincial Police Region 2 for investigating and arresting suspects who allegedly facilitated the opening of bank accounts for Chinese suspects. Those accounts were later used as mule accounts by call-centre scam networks.
Thana said the operation was an effort to uproot mule-account networks linking foreign brokers and financial institution staff, which had caused severe damage to the public and the Thai economy.
He said the court ruling in this case would serve as an important example and legal benchmark for suppressing technology crime and money laundering in Thailand.
Online gambling and illegal platforms
Between October 1, 2025 and July 19, 2026, police arrested suspects in:
- 1,441 online gambling cases
- 787 illegal online platform cases
- 3,106 online firearms cases
The online firearms cases involved 3,131 suspects, with seizures of 4,088 firearms, 242,808 rounds of ammunition, 162 explosive devices, and 877 other items.
World Cup betting crackdown
During the World Cup football gambling suppression operation from June 6 to July 19, 2026, police arrested operators linked to:
- 4,576 gambling websites
- 617 bookmakers
- 8,181 online gamblers
Police said the websites had combined financial circulation of more than 20.463 billion baht.
In July 2026 alone, police arrested operators of 137 online gambling websites with turnover of more than 10 million baht each. The cases involved 325 suspects and combined turnover of 10.75 billion baht.
Authorities also blocked a total of 557,924 URLs.
AOGC centre and smart detection planned
The Royal Thai Police and the Bank of Thailand are also working together to suppress and cut off the financial circuits of online gambling.
Authorities are preparing to establish an Online Gambling Suppression Centre, or AOGC, alongside intelligent detection systems.
Thana has ordered police to accelerate the arrest and blocking of online gambling websites, while also inspecting and arresting those involved in the sale and advertising of illegal firearms through online platforms.
In addition to cracking down on online gambling sites, police have also been instructed to investigate and arrest influencers or public figures who advertise, promote or create content encouraging people to gamble online.
He said investigations must also be expanded to identify those who hire them, because these people can easily reach the public and often have large followings.
