05 March 2010
	PROFILE The gaming's on By Shannon Sherry

The Fifa World Cup in SA will be the biggest international gambling event to have taken place so far, says Gibraltar-based bookmaker Victor Chandler. Chandler, who currently takes bets in 140 countries, is launching an online betting operation in SA in preparation for the soccer tournament, which takes place in less than 100 days. "A data centre has been set up and we have been training nine people for about four weeks. We will hire many more before the first match kicks off," he said in an interview from Gibraltar this week. Victor Chandler - Excited about China Chandler owns the world's largest online bookmaker, also named Victor Chandler, and is a regular on the Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated fortune of £365m. The company was launched in 1946 by his grandfather and taken over by his father until 1974. Chandler made a pioneering move to Gibraltar in 1998, quickly followed by other bookmakers and forcing then UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to abolish gambling tax in the 2001 budget. He received an SA bookmaking licence late last year. "We were always going to come to SA, but the World Cup gave us a good opportunity to launch." The mushrooming numbers of people globally with access to the Internet will contribute hugely to the scale of gambling on the World Cup. But the big breakthrough for betting on SA 2010, he says, will come from the "opening up" of China. It will bring a third of the global population - and the world's most gambling-mad nation - into the market. "That's where the big money is going to be coming from," Chandler says. "It is going to be interesting to see just the number of bets that are placed." He says his operation hopes to provide a "more varied set-up" and a better betting experience for SA customers, as well as more payment solutions. "People want speed in their activities. Punters do not want to fill out reams of forms. That spoils the experience. They want to place bets - now!" He promises that all of the best odds made available by the eight major UK bookmaking firms on horse racing in that country will be made available to SA punters though his firm. Horse racing beamed live to SA from the UK and other centres including Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and France is currently enjoying great popularity among SA punters. Some insiders credit it with rescuing the local industry from the doldrums.