Network operators stop paying for scratch cards after trillion-dollar online gambling case

Last week, VinaPhone announced that it would temporarily stop allowing the use of scratch cards for online payments for businesses operating in the digital content and online gaming sectors. Shortly after, the largest network operators in the market, Viettel and MobiFone, also made similar moves.

Share withPVRepresentatives of the three network operators explained that the suspension was to review the service, but did not say when this form of payment would be reopened.

Although accounting for a small proportion of total revenue, network representatives said that this business has a very strong growth rate. Specifically, in 2017, the field of payment by scratch cards has doubled compared to 2016 and is expected to increase by about 80% in 2018.

Although stopping this form of implementation in the short term will affect revenue, according to a leader of a network operator, this is necessary.

Loopholes in the scratch card business were clearly exposed during the investigation of the case "Using the Internet to commit acts of property appropriation, organizing gambling, gambling, illegal purchase and sale of invoices and money laundering occurring in Phu Tho and a number of provinces and cities", involving two police generals, Mr. Phan Van Vinh - Former Director General of the General Department of Police and Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hoa - Former Director of Department C50, Ministry of Public Security.

Authorities believe that it would be difficult to organize gambling activities through card games on a large scale like Rikvip without payment gateways and scratch cards. Payments from scratch cards for gambling in this case accounted for 97% of the total amount of money spent on gambling. For each transaction paid by scratch cards, telecommunications companies receive 15.5-16.3%.

The investigation agency assessed that "the loose management of the issuance and use of telecommunications scratch cards" made it easy for scratch cards to become a means of payment for non-telecommunications services. This created conditions for suspects to take advantage of to build a payment system for online gambling activities.

The management of the provision of server rental services, server location rental, domain names, and prefixes is still loose. This makes it easy for gambling organizations to be provided with server location rental services, Internet lines, IPs, domain names, including national domain names.

The Ministry of Public Security has proposed that the Government direct and, at the same time, include many contents to overcome these loopholes and limitations in the draft Law on Cyber ​​Security, which is expected to be considered and approved by the National Assembly in the upcoming 5th session.