15-05-2025
Illegal wagers on overseas sports betting sites top ¥6.4 trillion, study finds
Residents in Japan placed an estimated ¥6.45 trillion ($44 billion) in bets last year on overseas sports gambling websites — which are illegal in Japan — including around ¥1 trillion wagered on domestic sporting events, according to a sports organization report.
Tokyo-based nonprofit Council for Sports Ecosystem Promotion, which released the report on Wednesday, said the size of the illegal cross-border market has grown significantly in recent years.
The findings, based on data from overseas market research firms and licensed betting operators in jurisdictions where sports gambling is legal, comes after two baseball players were sent to prosecutors earlier this month for allegedly placing bets from Japan using overseas sports gambling sites.
According to the sports organization report, people in Japan placed a total of ¥5.43 trillion in bets on sports outside of Japan via overseas sports betting sites. Another ¥1.02 trillion was bet on Japanese sports, with professional baseball attracting the largest share, at ¥528.1 billion, followed by soccer, at ¥333.4 billion, and basketball, at ¥86.9 billion.
By contrast, sports lotteries, which are legal in Japan, generated ¥133.6 billion in sales in fiscal 2024, which ended in March, underscoring the enormous scale of the illegal market in comparison.
Japan strictly prohibits gambling, allowing betting only on certain government-sanctioned activities such as horse racing and motorboat racing. Residents who use online casinos, even those operated legally abroad, can face fines of up to ¥500,000 ($3,400) or up to three years in prison for repeated offenses.
In part due to low awareness that betting on overseas sports gambling sites is illegal, access to overseas sports betting platforms has surged in recent years. Japanese-language gambling sites and ads on social media targeting Japanese users have also proliferated, contributing to what the sports organization describes as a growing social issue.
As a result, local authorities are struggling to keep pace with enforcement. A record 279 people were arrested in Japan in 2024 for involvement with online betting sites — an increase of around 160% from the previous year.
Before the widespread use of smartphones, people would use online gambling sites at specialized establishments in entertainment districts. Recently, however, many people use their smartphones instead, and purchase points having transferred funds via bank transfers or from a credit card, making gambling more accessible for the average person.
A survey released by the National Police Agency in March estimated that 3.37 million people in the country had experience using online gambling sites. Notably, 43.5% of respondents said they were unaware that such gambling was illegal in Japan.
Despite the prevalence of the issue, Japanese police face tall jurisdictional hurdles in cracking down on cases in which operators are based overseas.
It plans to discuss the situation with sports organizations in other countries to prevent cross-border illegal sports betting.
The organization also plans to step up efforts to raise public awareness, to protect athletes and the integrity of sports from threats such as match-fixing and corruption, as domestic systems and measures to prevent it lag behind those in place overseas.
