I think the officer playing gambling could order other people to place bets while he remained in place watching if there was news of an ambush so he could immediately tell his friends in the casino to stay away for a while. The officials were very careful if they wanted to place a bet and would wait for the right time to come to the casino because they knew their fellow officers supervised all forms of gambling. That's why it's not easy to find where cockfighting is because only certain people are invited there.
This is the advantage of being a police because they know if there will be a raid that will happen and they can leave on that gambling place before their co-police came in the scene. It is still risky because what if someone reports them to their head? They can be fired out in an instant. That serves as a punishment because they are supposed to stop these kinds of activities, not to join them and encourage other people to do the same thing. This destroys their image as a police.
I really don't know the reason on why cock fighting is illegal while other gambling games are still illegal. I think this is because there's an animal that is involved or harmed here.
Well, surely they knew the risks and consequence if they will get caught gambling illegally with other gamblers but even though they knew that, they still chose indulge on such things because of the entertainment it an bring. One reason for that is at the end of the day, they are still a private citizen if they aren't wearing their uniforms who does gambling on one end.
To correct you on that last phrase. Cockfight is not entirely illegal, there are cockpits designated for people who wanted to gamble. What's illegal is all sorts of gambling that are not sanctioned by the government or who haven't got any permits to hold any gambling event and that includes cockfighting.
When you are off-duty then you do really have the rights as an ordinary citizen which means you could really make out involvement on things just like a normal citizen would tend to engage out but they aren't that
dumb on engaging on something that is illegal, once they're caught then say goodbye into their jobs.Its true that there would really be that legal places on where these cockfighting would be held upon.
But just as expected that there would be places that wont really be on scope of government and this is where illegal arenas been mold and gamblers or bettors will really be get arrested
once there would really be a raid.