Underground gambling circles, often regarded as unofficial support polls, have been changing the betting rules in recent months ahead of what is shaping up to be a very close January presidential election.
Bettors say the rules ordained by dealers are changing because the gap between Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson and candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is closing.
Previously, bids favored Ma defeating Tsai by 800,000 votes, but as of Wednesday, bids for Ma beating Tsai had shrunk to a lead of between 100,000 and 150,000 votes.
With the majority of central and southern Taiwan betting on Tsai, dealers are also considering opening bets on a possible tie between the two.
Other dealers have placed conditional betting, saying that if People First Party Chairman and presidential candidate James Soong (宋楚瑜) dropped out of the race, all bets would be annulled.
Dealers make up a complex assortment of people. Some are gang members and use their influence in the underworld to control elections to a certain extent. Others are people’s representatives, manipulating the elections through underground betting to support their own political parties. Some are simply wealthy.
Underground gambling is usually geared toward who leads over whom by how many votes, earning the underground gambling circles both the name of a “freak child” of Taiwan’s election-centric politics and also an indicator of political support.
The political inclinations of dealers and gamblers have a certain influence on politics. If, for example, a bet says A would beat B by X votes, but gamblers who favor A feel that A would not beat B by so many votes, the gamblers would therefore bet on B and would vote for B in the elections to win money.
Some gamblers also try to influence their own friends and family to vote for the candidate they betted on, a dealer said, which might have an impact on the elections.
One dealer in central Taiwan said Tsai’s nearly blank political record makes it hard for the pan-blue camp to dig up dirt on her, adding that the controversy over DPP vice presidential candidate Su Jia-chyuan’s (蘇嘉全) farmhouse had blown over and that the success of the “three little pigs” campaign, the Ma administration’s peace accord proposal and the controversial Dreamers (夢想家) drama continued to batter Ma’s election efforts.
The changes in betting patterns also show public optimism about Tsai’s chances of winning the presidency.
A Chiayi resident and a longtime observer of underground political gambling said that despite the narrowing gap between Ma and Tsai, the KMT’s ability to mobilize support and its wealth meant that the latest gambling rules still favored Ma leading Tsai, though Ma’s lead would continue to drop, to the point where bets on a tie could open.
To minimize the effects of illegal betting on the elections, some police departments, including the Greater Taichung Police Department, have given orders to clamp down on gambling on the presidential race.
Police said that based on past experience, there would be people who try to manipulate elections through gambling.
Although there have been rumors of underground gambling circles, police said that with some people placing bets via the Internet, it has become more difficult for them to gather information and clamp down on such activities.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff writer
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