PAS Youth today claimed that Ascot Sports Sdn Bhd will kick start its sports-betting business by focusing on four European football league tournaments starting this August.
PAS Youth chief Nasrudin Hassan Tantawi said he had “insider information” as to what matches would be the target of the sports-betting firm owned by tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan.
“We have insider information from our people that Ascot Sports will provide betting services for four major leagues — the English Premier League, the Italian league, as well as the Spanish and German leagues,” Nasrudin said in his winding-up speech at the party’s annual general assembly here.
Nasrudin claimed that the sports betting company could not prepare itself to start betting services in time for the World Cup because it was “too soon”.
“These four league tournaments will start after August. That is why on July 3, we need to send the world a message of our stand on sports betting.”
PAS will mobilise Malaysians to join its “100,000 march” to the Istana Negara this July 3 in protest over the Najib administration’s legalisation of sports-betting.
The party’s annual general assembly saw a motion unanimously passed in favour of PAS’ tough stance on sports-betting.
The motion was tabled by the Islamist party’s youth wing to “pressure the Malaysian government to abolish sports-betting, tighten laws against betting as well as educate Malaysians to reject betting.”
Nasrudin also denied newspaper reports quoting the PAS Youth wing as “unwilling” to push for a full ban of all types of betting.
“To be clear what we mean is that we agree that all forms of gambling, betting should be banned.
“But for now we will focus our efforts on sports-betting,” said Nasrudin.
Tan’s Ascot Sports has received approval for a sports-betting licence that was first issued in 1987.
His listed Berjaya Corporation Berhad (Bcorp) told Bursa Malaysia the full licence has yet to be issued pending the Finance Ministry’s full terms and conditions.
BCorp is to buy Tan’s 70 per cent stake in Ascot Sports for RM525 million, which the tycoon pledged to his own charity, the Better Malaysia Foundation.
There was some confusion over the licence after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak denied this week that the licence had been re-issued following the public uproar.
The Pakatan Rakyat-ruled (PR) states of Penang, Selangor and Kedah have declared they will not issue licences for sports-betting premises, dealing a blow to Tan’s plans to turn 220 out of 680 Sports Toto outlets into sports-betting centres via phone betting in the second half of 2010.
The sports-betting plan has proven to be another issue for PR to use against Najib’s Barisan Nasional (BN), which lost its traditional two-thirds Parliamentary majority and four states in Election 2008.
Tan, who is close to the BN government, has argued that legalised sports betting could bring in up to RM3 billion in taxes annually for the authorities as the business is worth some RM30 billion.
Malaysia now only allows a casino, turf clubs, jackpot machines and several numbers forecasting operators to operate in Malaysia
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I confused! Prime Minister Najib Razak denying that the licence had been re-issued and Vincent Tan starting its sports-betting business this August. Is Vincent Tan saying that he is going ahead with his own illegal sports betting, if the government does not give its go ahead?
Tan's argument is that legalised sports betting could bring in up to RM3 billion in taxes annually. Is drug trafficking going to be legalized too, if traffickers can prove that they can bring in a similar amount of taxes?
it is quite simple, najib needs vincent 2 buy the frogs n d next bye election n the next general election. vincent needs the cash. it is like u scratch mine n i do the same. afterall, we r in m'sia n they say everything is possible. why, PR objects is bcos they dont want that cash deposit from vincent. a blind can c the plot.
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