With football fever gripping the world, pub patrons and owners are finding it hard to resist placing bets on favourites to win the most-watched sporting event worldwide. However private citizens who organise their own betting pools may be flirting with a red card as betting without police permission is illegal.
With the start of the most prestigious football competition about to kick off Thursday, fans are placing bets on their favourites in the sanctuary of their local pubs. At some watering holes in the Häme region, patrons are organising the pools themselves, but in others the bookie can be found behind the bar counter.
“We made a form where patrons can place bets for the first round using the traditional 1×2 method. (1 = home team win, x = draw, 2 = home team loss). We add an incentive at the end, where we bet on the world champion, as well as the silver and bronze teams, the highest goal scorer and the group that fields the winning team. So in this way we maintain interest during the course of the entire competition,” said one pub owner who chose to remain anonymous.
Sports betting has increased in popularity over the years. Four years ago during the previous World Cup competition not as many patrons were as keen to flirt with the law and get involved in football pools.
“It’s become quite widespread. People like putting their money into the competition much more. They buy newspapers, look at the statistics and in this way they become better informed about their betting. I can’t give precise information about participants but at the moment we have more than 20. There’s a participation fee of ten euros and the winner takes the whole pot. So you can make quite a lot of beer money this way,” the publican quipped.(more)
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Source: YLE