An online betting boom has seen Irish punters so far wager more than €40 million on the World Cup.
Paddy Power, Ireland's largest bookmaker, has taken €20 million in online and telephone bets since the tournament began and expects another 100,000 bets to be laid before and during tomorrow's showdown between Italy and France.
Live betting, or "betting-in-running", has become the phenomenon of the World Cup. The facility was not available in 2002, but this time around punters have been betting during actual games either online or via telephone accounts.
The company expects about 70,000 separate bets before the final and another 30,000 during it.
The growth of telephone and internet betting is a huge concern for Gamblers Anonymous Ireland (GAI).
GAI holds meetings every week in 30 locations around the Republic and seven nights a week in Dublin.
"There are more people coming in to us all the time suffering from internet gambling addiction," a GAI spokesman said. "It takes time to destroy a life, to end a marriage or lose a home. It does not happen overnight and I think it will possibly be another two to three years before we see the real extent of problems caused by online gambling."
The online betting industry is worth almost €800 million a year in Ireland, but there is no regulation of it because the industry is internet-based. And since most of the companies involved are registered offshore, the Exchequer is losing hundreds of millions a year in tax revenue.
There are no plans at present to regulate the online betting industry.
A Department of Finance spokesman said: "It falls between a whole number of stools. There is actually no regulatory authority. So if, for example, you go into one of these online poker places and put €2,000 on your credit card and find out it's a scam, well there's no place for you to go."