Aside from the Muslim-majority countries of Indonesia and Brunei, Thailand is the only Asian country without a legal casino, despite having extensive gaming ties. With a population of about 70 million people, it is estimated that up to half of the country’s adult population gambles illegally through sports betting. It’s clear from betting news in Thailand how and where gambling takes place. Thailand has long been considered a promising contender for establishing a legal casino business.
“There are a lot of Thai gaming clients who gamble all over the place.” Poipet in Cambodia, which has nearly entirely Thai consumers, is a good illustration of this.”
“Is it all aspirations and dreams,” Umansky wonders?
This is the subject that the Thai parliament is presently debating. This is after voting in early December to establish an emergency committee to investigate a proposal to create an integrated resort with a casino to draw more international visitors and help the local economy.
The special committee is made up of 60 individuals, 15 of whom are cabinet officials and 45 from various political parties. The committee would look into the legal changes needed to allow casino gaming.
According to local media sources, Thailand’s latest drive for authorized casino gambling stems partly from the COVID-19 pandemic, with Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha concerned that illegal gambling dens have become major spreader sites. As a result, despite being opposed to the notion, Prayut appears to be receptive to public debates on the benefits and cons of legalizing gambling.
Despite Prime Minister Prayut’s crackdown on underground casinos – which sources say eliminated up to 80% of those in operation at the time – a government panel established in February 2021 found there were still around 200 illegal gambling dens operating nationwide, including 47 in the Bangkok metropolitan area.
However, the idea of allowing casinos in Thailand isn’t new.
It came close to becoming a reality in 2003 when then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra met with representatives of MGM Resorts, or MGM Mirage as it was then known. Rather than attempting to pass a specific casino law, Thaksin realized that simply amending the current Gambling Act of 1935 – which allows betting on a small number of particular activities such as horse racing, cockfighting, combat sports, and the lottery – to include casinos was a more realistic path forward. He was probably correct, but more vital concerns would consume Thaksin’s time until he was deposed by a military coup in 2006.
If newly appointed Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej served out his four-year tenure, he vowed to open casinos in five important tourist destinations: Pattaya, Phuket, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, and Hat Yai. Samak was sentenced to two years in prison on an old libel conviction and fled to the United States, having only lasted four months.
Before COVID-19, a feasibility study done by an internationally renowned consultancy advocated the construction of “two or three” casinos in Thailand, including a large-scale integrated resort in Bangkok and two smaller satellite casinos in tourist areas.
This country already attracts 40 million visitors each year and has everything you could desire in terms of tourism, except for casino gambling. It would be great to have casino games legalized in Thailand.
