On September 28, 2026, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and Hải Phòng City Police announced an unusual case: a group of eight people had allegedly built what looked less like a gambling operation and more like a small video-production business.

The group staged gambling scenes, assigned roles, wrote scripts and uploaded the resulting clips to Facebook. Police say they posted nearly 800 videos.

But the gambling itself was not really the product. Embedded in the videos were advertisements for devices promoted as tools for cheating at gambling.

The gambling was staged. The sales pitch was real.