A young beautician and an elderly man were locked in a serious altercation inside a salon at East Badda in the capital a few weeks back. At one point, they tried to attack each other with a pair of scissors and a razor, only to be pacified by others.

Asked later about the reason behind the altercation, the young beautician said they used to play gambling on cricket and he was not interested in playing with the elderly man, he came to his salon and locked in the altercation.

The beautician told the Daily Sun that he lost most of his earnings from salon in gambling.

Like them, thousands of people, mostly youths and teenagers, are addicted to online and offline gambling, contributing to different types of crimes, including mugging and murder.

On the other hand, a number of foreign gambling site operators are draining millions of taka from the country, said police.  

On Monday, State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak said around 50 lakh people are involved in online gambling in the country.

"We’ve exchanged views on online gambling. Our children of different ages are at serious risk. Even many elderly retired persons are joining the fray. Analysing the data, we’ve seen that about 50 lakh people are involved in these gambling sites," he said.

A total of 2,600 gambling sites have already been blocked and mobile apps on gambling are now being blocked, the state minister said.

He said they sat with the Department of Telecom, National Telecom Monitoring Centre, Bangladesh Computer Council, Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and Cyber Security Agency to discuss the blocking of these gambling sites.

Director (Legal and Media) of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Arafat Islam told the Daily Sun that gambling, particularly online one, has turned to be a serious concern.

Even children of people having Android mobiles are addicted to online gambling, he said.

Rezaul Masud, special superintendent of police at the Cyber Police Centre under the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), echoed the same.

On 21 February last, Tarikul Islam, 20, an online gambler, killed bKash agent Sharif Khan, 40, at Kalukhali in Rajbari to loot money for gambling, said district SP JM Abul Kalam Azad.

On 23 February, Onik and Hridoy killed gold trader Amar Sarkar after looting his gold and money in South Matlab of Chandpur.

After their arrest the following day, the duo confessed that they committed the murder to arrange money for repaying loans they took for playing online gambling.

'The Public Gambling Act-1867' was enacted during the British regime to prevent gambling, which has no section on online gambling.

In 2023, a move was taken to update the law. As part of the initiative, the 'Gambling Prevention Act-2023' was drafted, but it is yet to see the ray of light.

According to section 2(4) of the draft law, gambling means all kinds of betting, housie, lottery, financially risky games, match or spot-fixing, online gambling and distant gambling