Triads: 1 ; Police: 0

Did the government think legalising betting on football (soccer) would be the end of illegal gambling?

It took three seconds for syndicates to find a way around the law, and in the most brazen, ingenious method ever: they used the Hong Kong Jockey Club's own official betting slips.

Illegal bookies switched from using dubious scraps of paper as receipts to real tickets. The Jockey Club was mortified and stunned, promising to investigate how it happened. They'll have to print new tickets and make sure they aren't sold out the back door in bulk to the triads.

An international bookie explained it this way:

Previously illegal bookmakers would write out the receipt on a piece of paper. But now they don't need it any more because they are using the Jockey Club ticket as unofficial tender. They use exactly the same system on the front of the ticket. It is simple. Everybody understands it.

But then what they do is mark the back of the ticket with a code. They take the money from their clients, note the transaction on their own books, and if they are raided by police simply claim they have scrawled something on the back of the ticket on the way to the official betting outlet.

There is no way police can bust them. These are camouflaged receipts, they are not walking around with a bookmaking receipt or a scrap of paper, all they have is a marked ticket with some initials or a numbered code on the back.

What are they going to arrest them for? Holding a ticket? They [the Jockey Club] have just done the illegal bookmakers a favour, they have just legalised illegal bookmaking.

The real slap in the face is illegal bookies are offering better odds on the matches than the legitimate system.

Triads have been around for centuries: if there's a way to make money from something, they'll find it.

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