Koreans are rapidly emerging as new customers for foreign sports gambling companies it was reported, Sunday, with growing numbers logging on to Internet sites of sports gambling firms headquartered in Europe during the World Cup. Companies are engaged in hot competition to attract Korean members by offering online services in Korean, and even hiring South Korean workers.

Betting on scores and winners of a variety of sports games such as football and baseball for money game is illegal domestically. However, it is virtually impossible to regulate online gambling sites based overseas. The domestic population logging on to online betting overseas is estimated at several thousands a day.

As of now three such companies offer Korean language services, including ones identified as T and S. Headquartered in Gibraltar, T employs Korean workers from 9:00am to 1:00am, Korean time. An insider of T said, South Korean members numbered some 1,300 in just three months of the service launch, noting that several hundreds of South Koreans were betting from US$10 to US$2,000 a day during the World Cup.

Their preference on overseas online betting comes from various choices for betting on games of many countries, including World Cup nominees such as Brazil and the dividend stands at dozens of times domestic sports lotteries, users say.

A person involved in Tiger Pools said it was estimated some 100,000 people use overseas sports betting sites annually, warning that there is no regulation on betting amounts and it was stronly addictive.

(Shin Dong-heun, dhshin@chosun.com )