Vietnam’s cyber crime police under the Ministry of Public Security, and police officers of HCMC and the neighboring province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau arrested three South Korean men organizing the online gambling ring Friday.

Kim Joo Hyeon, 46, An Kwang Ho, 41, and 24-year-old Kim Hong Min entered Vietnam on tourist visas and organized online gambling for South Koreans living in the country, police said.

During a raid on their rented house in Vung Tau Town, the capital of Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province in southern Vietnam, police seized 20 mobile phones, nine bank cards, 37 desktop computers, two laptops and devices for online payment.

The online gambling ring was hosted by a website with its server outside Vietnam, providing thousands of players, mainly South Koreans, with a variety of gambling games.

Since November last year, the ring had organized transactions worth more than VND170 billion ($7.3 million), police said.

The Vietnamese authorities have recently relaxed their stance on gambling as a "social evil," legalizing sports betting in 2017, and allowing Vietnamese citizens aged over 21 with a monthly income of at least VND10 million ($445) to play in a casino resort in Phu Quoc Island on a pilot basis. 

Online betting, however, remains illegal.