You know you have a gambling problem when your neighbourhood World Cup bookie is a 21-year-old female college student.

It's not a sexist thing, but normally, one would imagine bookies to be shady characters or guys you meet in dimly-lit rooms enveloped in cigarette smoke while his runners play pool in the background.

Well, that's not the case anymore.

Times are a-changing. Germany are playing attacking football, Brazil are playing defence, the American president is black, we can use the word "black" again, and your college bookie today could be the girl sitting next to you in class studying for a law degree and worrying about her flagging GPA.

At least, that's how it is for 23-year-old college student Jim.

His bookie is not exactly a law student, and doesn't really care about her grades, but she is a regular college student. For the past three weeks, she has been taking bets from Jim and his friends for the World Cup.

"I wanted to bet on the World Cup, so my friend introduced us. I've won close to 2,000 ringgit (S$865) from betting through her," says Jim.

Unfortunately, that has become a rather common scenario in local Malaysian colleges and universities during this World Cup. Not the winning, but the amateur bookmaking.

Students have been acting as ad hoc bookies to set up bets between their friends, and earning a bit of extra cash along the way.

"If you play smart, you can earn good money as a bookie," notes Jim. "As the World Cup progresses, most students will already know who among them are bookies and how to get in touch with them. It's all through word-of-mouth."

Jacob, 26, a university student who set up his first bet during the last World Cup four years ago, says: "It's easy (to find a bookie in college). Just ask around and you'll find someone who is either willing to be a bookie, or already knows one. Every class will surely have at least one or two these days."

Last week's Sunday Star cover story was on how rampant World Cup betting has become in colleges/universities in Malaysia, so much so that big-time bookies were even recruiting student runners just to work the field among their peers.