Thai's And Card-games/gambling...

[ChrisP]

Is playing cards (gambling card-games, I mean) a national obsession with Thai's...?

I mean, some games go on for 8+ hours...!!

Any observations...??

ChrisP

[digibum]

Is playing cards (gambling card-games, I mean) a national obsession with Thai's...?

I mean, some games go on for 8+ hours...!!

Any observations...??

ChrisP

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think it has anything to do with being Thai. Walk into any card room in Los Angeles or Vegas and the room is full of Asians. While a good number play poker all of the Pai Gow and other more obscure games are almost all Asians.

[TRIPxCORE]

I don't think it has anything to do with being Thai.  Walk into any card room in Los Angeles or Vegas and the room is full of Asians.  While a good number play poker all of the Pai Gow and other more obscure games are almost all Asians.

I love Pai Gow!

[Torphun]

"8 hours"....... try 36 hours straight.... mother in-law will do that at least once a week, when she comes home she looks like she has aged 10 years.

It gets even worse during a funeral, they will play for 3 or 4 days.

[ChrisP]

I hear that card-game "gambling" is illegal in LOS... and I'm told that even your neighbours might rat on you to the cops if they know you're playing at home..! (just to make a few baht...!!)

And, the cops have been known to peer in the windows at night in the moobahn... don't they have anything else better to do...??

I asked "why not just play cards for the fun, and not for money.." (like we sometimes do in the West..)

The answer came "What's the point....?"

Maybe it's the Thai love of "chance" and "fortune"...

ChrisP

[Spee]

Is playing cards (gambling card-games, I mean) a national obsession with Thai's...?

I mean, some games go on for 8+ hours...!!

Any observations...??

ChrisP

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't think it has anything to do with being Thai. Walk into any card room in Los Angeles or Vegas and the room is full of Asians. While a good number play poker all of the Pai Gow and other more obscure games are almost all Asians.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It ain't just Asians and it ain't just the west side of the US. Card rooms are booming right now. Regardless of that observation, I still think it is a generalization to say that Asians (or Thai people in particular) as a group are heavy gamblers. Some do. Most don't.

[Humphrey Bear]

Have employed a lot of Thais on construction sites in the Middle East.

One in Saudi, before the Kings jewels went missing, we had about 2,000 Thais. Two of the German supervisors brought in a couple of Thai 'foremen' that they had employed on other sites. These guys were professional gamblers, never saw the construction site. gave a portion of their 'take' to the germans.

I found out, had the two Germans sacked, plus the two Thais. Some of my workers had been there for two years or more and never sent a penny home. Lost everything every month (or every fortnight) but still showed up next payday with all their money.

After that, when i took over the next site, I made the Thais sign the Philipine Government Contract, alongside the flips. This stated that the company had to remit 70% of the basic wage to a bank in the home country (Thailand or Philippines). Great protests at the start from the Thais, but by the time that job finished I was getting letters from the families back in LOS thanking me for the money they received.

Used the same formula on three or four successive projects, found that virtually all the labour force followed me from job-to-job, country-to-country, company-to-company. Pity the Thai government of that time (eighties / nineties) did not look after their expatriate workers as well as the Philippine government (Ferdinand Marcos / Ramos).

Short sequel - the two German engineers came to LOS for a holiday. One was killed in a knife fight, the other in a road accident. Justice?? brought about by unhappy families?? I do not know.

But the Thais are worse than the Chinese for gambling. They are not even good gamblers. Sucker bets all over the place, relying on luck, not having any idea of odds, mathematics, whatever.

[ChrisP]

^

Hmmm. seems my observation was about right..!

Great story!

ChrisP

[bina]

after that thought i would add too:

our workers get a minimal 'advance' on their salary and the rest goes home... they dont like that but it has saved my worker's wife lots of money... he recently bought a 'piggy bank' that could only be opened by a can opener!! wanted to save extra shekels for buying something big at end of stay... hi-lo during rainy weather and voila! the can was opened (he told me looking very embarrassed since he had sworn he wouldnt play anymore) but group pressure, every one borrows from every one even 1000 shekels (they also play for cartons of vodka-12 bottles a carton at 13 shekels a bottle, and ciggs..); he gets drunk and the next morning he has lost his 800 shekel advance, and borrowed from friends (w/interest) up to 2000 without even knowing that he did it... this is all the groups here, there are thai guys roaming israel that are pros; they come to moshavim, play, get the other guys drunker then them, and then wipe them all out... one guy returned home w/ guy here owing him thousands, the other guys say this man went to the other man's family in thailand and 'retrieved' his debt, prbably w/ a knife....

when its not hi-lo its cards, all night long especially when winter rains dont permit work, so drink cards hi lo and then fighting....these guys dont seem to be able to stop.... and they lie to their wives that when the paycheck is less then usual its due to lack of work, usually its cause they took a larger than normal 'advance' which gets smoked, drunk up and gambled away.... here we only give 1000 shekel advance to 'puu yai' of the group, and for holidays... esentially its against the law to limit amount that can be drawn but this is really only way for money to get home (rather patronizing actually but still....)

just curious but couldnt understand how to play hi lo... anyone want to try to explain to me, cause i just cant follow and they are usually too drunk to explain when they are playing........i dont want to play just want to understand the idea behind all those squiggly words and etc. ...

Edited May 10, 2005 by bina

[Ken]

^

Hmmm. seems my observation was about right..!

Great story!

ChrisP

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ChrisP: Without going into too much. If you have a Thai girlfriend/wife with a card game problem....I think it is a huge problem with the Thai's and not just guys, but big time with the girls. I've seen it, I've experienced to the tune of around $20,000 US, paying off the debts. And my experience is not as much as some other people I know of: France: more than $20,000, another American, $50,000 +. All I can say is be very careful if you have a "loved one" (Thai or any other I suppose) who is "playing". There are more examples I can give you and if you really want to know, I can PM you with additional details. It's downright scary.

[wolf5370]

I know a woman that come from a fairly wealthy background (Thai-wise). She is in her forties now. She has lost all her money gambling of the years; systematically loosing her house to mafia-loan-sharks (to pay off her debts), a restaurant, a shop, all the money her daughters sent her to get her out of her gambling debts (she has 3 girls who live abroad - their husband all refuse to send anymore money), etc.

The girls got together and bought their mother and father a new house (they were about to get kicked out of the one they were renting) with a ground floor shop (grocers). They stocked it too. Some of the girls took loans in their adoptive countries to pay for it. Within a week of getting the paperwork for the building, she had borrowed quater of a million baht on the papers from loan-sharks and lost it all gambling. She also lost all the takings, so the shop can not afford to restock (the girls paid for restocking twice more - same story). The father (husband) does not gamble at all. He has one possesion, his car, bought by the daughters on HP for him. She has tried many times to get him to put his car up as security for loans. He refuses (to his credit) - she has stripped him and her family bare. The girls try to stop her, but it is their mother and we all know how hard it is for Thais to overcome the family social structure.

It is an illness. She gets some cash and disappears until its all gone - this can be a night or a week. She comes back empty handed as allways.

Edited May 11, 2005 by wolf5370

[wolf5370]

From my last post...

PS: Her younger brother is no better. He is gay and had an old English lover who died and left him over half a million pounds, a large house (in Thailand), 3 storey residence in Kensington (expensive area in London, UK - property probably worth about a million pounds sterling at the time give of take), land in Northern Thailand (he had bought it in the brother's name, but held the paperwork back until he died). The brother sold the house and bought a newly built one in BKK costing about fifty thousand pounds (this was some years back, so was a big price).

Within six months he had to sell the house to pay off his depts (he had lost the cash already to the gambling den) for 10 tousand pounds. He sold the Kensington flats to someone else I know for fifty thousand pounds with a sitting tenant - this guy is just waiting for the tenant to die so he can sell the lot - its an old man that has a contracted right to live there on a set rent until he dies - probably a friend of the old guy that died). He lost that money too. I bought some land off him a few years back because he was desparate - the loan-sharks has taken his car and were sizing up his house ( Teak worth about 10m Baht - or so he tells me) - I didn't haggle, he was desparate - I gave it to my mother-in-law.

He now has nothing left except the house - which he can't sell because he built it in the sticks and noone want s such an expensive house in the middle of nowhere.

I played some cards with him in the UK when he visited me and my business partner at our Thai restaurant about 8 years back. He taught us Thai Rummy. He promptly lost all his money to us in about 4 hours. We let him have it back and said it was a friendly. We also went to the casino in Leicester Square. My Bus. Partner and I took fifty pound which we were willing to loose - we actually both left up after some pure luck on roulette and some friendly coaching on blackjack by an Arab guy who knew a heck of a lot more than we did. The younger brother of the woman I was talking about in my last post lost 300 pounds in just two games of Baccarat (spelling?) - he did not have a clue what he was doing. He borrowed eighty more from me and lost it on a single bet. He was cleaned out within ten minutes of arriving. We were there having fun for a few hours while he watched glumly being denied when he asked to borrow more! Incidently, he only gave me 50 of the 80 pounds back - I didn't expect to see even that though, so it was a bonus!

As someone said - betting on pure luck alone. I'm sure he could not have enjoyed the 3 minutes of actual play.