Loophole lets Singapore Pools app users place bets from overseas – despite rules against it
CNA's investigation, "Loophole lets Singapore Pools app users place bets from overseas – despite rules against it," found that the Singapore Pools app can be accessed and used to place bets outside Singapore, despite rules confining betting to within the country.
CNA tested the app in the UK and Italy during the World Cup and placed bets successfully, and seven users described similar workarounds from countries including Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and China dating back to 2020, all via roaming data on Singapore telcos. The Gambling Regulatory Authority confirmed operators are required to restrict betting to users physically in Singapore, and Singapore Pools said it uses geofencing and residency checks, though it did not comment on the loophole itself.
Professor Chan Mun Choon, who directs the NUS-NCS Joint Laboratory for Cyber Security, explained the technical mechanism: mobile roaming can route traffic so an overseas user appears to be connecting from a Singapore IP address, even while physically elsewhere. He noted that telcos cannot always determine an internet traffic's true origin, which puts the onus on app owners to build in further safeguards, such as combining IP checks with GPS-based geolocation.