Online-based gambling apps drained people of millions

Syed Shemul Parvez :
A significant portion of youths in Bangladesh are getting addicted to online gambling rapidly. Many of them are children and adolescent. Starting with an investment of Taka 5-10 thousand, one gets greedy and loses lakhs of taka.
Nowadays, it is normally seen on the spot that youths are playing this game in the public places without any hindrance of law enforcement.
Sources said, most of these gambling sites are operated from Russia, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Bangladeshi agents are running these sites which managed from abroad. In this way, Million of taka from gambling investments are being smuggled abroad.
Expressing deep concern experts said that the online gambling is one of the new panic and fear for the new generation. This generation is attracted to various gambling sites out of a kind of curiosity.
These sites offer online betting and virtual casinos. Cricket betting draws a lot of hits during different international cricket matches.
For signing up, the gambling sites and apps just require an email address, mobile phone number and a password. The new account will have a virtual wallet attached.  
To add currency to the wallet, the users need to convert the taka into gambling currency from the mobile financial service (MFS) outlets. The gambling currencies, also called bot balance, can be put into the betting process.
Al-Amin, 18, a driver of an auto rickshaw earns Tk 500 to 600 everyday to bear the cost and meet the demand of his family.
But at present, he can’t pay any amount to his family due to addiction to online gambling.
Al Amin’s mother Ambia Khatun told The New Nation that my son Al-Amin normally leads her family. But recently he can’t pay any single money to the family due to online gambling and gambling. He spends his almost time playing gambling with others youths of the village, Ambia added.
A member of an online gambling platform named Hafiz Al Asad (23) was arrested by the Anti Terrorism Unit (ATU). According to the police, this young man used to encourage various young people to participate in online gambling with money and dollars.
Superintendent of Police (Media and Awareness wing of ATU) Mohammad Aslam Khan gave this information on Monday (April 3).
Dr. Tawhidul Haque, a society and crime expert, and also Assistant professor of University of Dhaka told the New Nation that the youth’s addiction to online based gambling apps are increasing in an alarming rate and which is one of the drawbacks of the society.
It is not possible to eradicate such crime by implementing only law, all class of people including the people representative and social workers have to come forward to solve this problem.
If a representative wants to solve it, the process will be easier as he knows the areas where youths play this type of gambling , Dr. Haque added.
Law enforcement agencies say that many people have been arrested on different occasions as gambling is still illegal in Bangladesh. BTRC may have blocked local access to such sites but gamblers are still accessing those using Virtual Private Networks or VPNs.
There are hundreds of pages, on Facebook or other platforms, which are known for hosting gambling. Solar Valley, Cash River Slots, Club999 Online Gambling and Velki are some of these. Most of them are operated by people abroad.
Earlier, BTRC has so far shut down 331 online gambling sites. It said some criminal groups have used these sites to launder massive amounts of money out of the country.
The regulator has also reported to the Google authorities to shut down 150 apps related to online betting that are available on Google’s Play Store.
Google has already blocked 14 apps from the Play Store and is working to verify the complaints against the remaining apps before taking the necessary steps to block them.