No one can agree on whether the legalization of football betting is good or not for Vietnam, although it has been popular all over the world for a long time.

And although the creation of a legal framework for football betting took place and was almost finalized years ago, it has not been submitted for official approval.

It seems that the matter mainly lies in the vision of policymakers who are torn between different currents of ideas. Ironically, betting on horse races and dog races has been legal in Vietnam for years.

The issue has become even more complicated since authorities are mulling separating gambling into two types: betting on foreign football matches and betting on domestic football leagues.

Whatever ideas Vietnamese authorities are considering, matches in Vietnam’s top-tier V-League are available for bettors across the world thanks to foreign websites.

Recently, the government has given the green light to a pilot football betting method in Vietnam, but a law to fully legalize the activity is still nonexistent. So by law, football betting is illegal regardless of the true need of a section of wealthy people to bet on the results of football matches.

Nguyen Trong Hy, chairman of the Vietnam Football Federation, is leading the campaig’ to say yes, and is thus urging for the legalization of football betting in Vietnam. He is backed by several newspapers, including Thanh Nien.

He agreed that it is a financial loss and failure in management if football betting continues illegally. In addition, legal betting helps raise more money for football investment.

Besides income, legalization would help create a public and transparent system for better social management.

Despite assurances from writers of the draft law that they will impose a limit on the amount of money that a person can bet in one day to prevent bankruptcy, some still doubt that this is an efficient solution.

A ‘thirsty’ bettor may still resort to illegal betting when he hits the legal limit, and therefore ‘underground’ betting will continue to exist as it is now.

Others have argued that the legalization of football betting will create ‘a tool’ for Vietnamese footballers to fix the very matches they play in.

No persuasive solution has been proposed to deal with the latter idea. A proposal was made to legalize betting on only foreign football tournaments. That means betting on V-Leagues matches would continue to be illegal, but V-League matches have been posted for online betting on foreign websites.

Divided between such opinions, legitimate football betting is still a luxury in Vietnam.