The draft envisages the government’s sole prerogative over football gambling and a betting system operating separately from the Vietnam Football Federation to avoid conflicts of interest

At the conference, delegates from lottery companies, the federation and the two ministries discussed the benefits of legalized betting, including profits which could be utilized to develop amateur sports and providing an option to underground betting.

Last year, the state lottery sector contributed over VND5 trillion (US$312.5 million) to the Exchequer.

The Committee for Sports and Physical Training and the Ministry of Finance, responsible for drafting the ordinance, had earlier estimated annual revenues from football betting could be as high as VND800 billion ($50.384 million) which could be ploughed directly into sports development.

The government is expected to ratify the draft late this year.

Vietnam only allows race track betting on horses and dogs and certain prize-winning games.

The country has two dog and horse bookmakers and 33 enterprises including 22 foreign-invested ones specializing in prize-winning games.

Vietnam began to mull sanctioning football betting recently after several senior officials were arrested for gambling millions of dollars of suspected state funds on international football.

Reported by Thanh Nien reporters – Translated by Hoang Bao