Thailand Must Consider Legalised Gaming Soon, Tourism Forum Hears

[ezzra]

Here we go... the gravy train has in the station, all aboard now...chuu chuu

[FarangTalk]

What will happen when there is another coup? Will they shut down all the casinos again and re-ban all gambling?

Reading the Wikipedia article linked to by another poster, it appears history is about to repeat itself all over again.

[chooka]

I am not really what you could call a gambler apart from a $10 flutter on the Melbourne cup each year during a social gathering.

As for Thailand legalising gambling I think it would be a positive step to helping stem the underground network and it would also provide revenue to the government, which could be used towards health and education. Money will be going to the people (in theory) and not to local mafias and corrupt officials. This is of course if it is strictly monitored by ethical people with Thailands interest in mind.

It will definately boost tourism and provide employment but I would not like to see Thailand get greedy and build casinos all over the country. I would say a maximum of two, Bangkok and maybe Chiangmai and I hate to say Chiangmai as this is where I have set up home.

[eddie61]

Mt Thaksin and others were talking to the operators of Macau casinos in 2005 with a view to opening Thailand's first casino in the Chiang Mai province, one of Mr Thaksin's sisters attended the meeting.

The 2006 coup put an end to that.

I think we can safely assume that negotiations are on again. And it makes sense,Thailand is bleeding gambling money to every other country that surrounds it.

Does it really make a difference? The government has no place protecting people from themselves.

Let Darwinism take its course: some will be poorer, some will be richer. The only hope is that some revenue gets channelled into improving the education system, but that is very doubtful. In the end, the only winners in the present system are the police and operators abroad, and the poor are screwed in any case.

[PhilipCook]

Gambling is already here, you have free rides from Bangkok to the casinos just over the border to the east. Locals are already hooked on it, this article is about making it available to non-thais. Nepal offers gambling for foreign visitors, Korea does too. Admittedly locals will finds ways of bypassing the rules, dual nationality, etc. but legalization of certain business activities that already exist here just makes good sense for tax collection. Gambling is one of them, there are plenty of others to consider. If taxes are applied to gambling, prostitution, informal businesses then we could see taxes on other matters reduced to compete with neighboring countries like/similar to Singapore:

Reduce VAT to 5%

Personal Income Tax to 15%, make it flat no deductions, everyone pays > 500,000 Baht earnings

Corporate Tax to 20%, make it flat, no more BOI holiday for some and not for others

[BrianCR]

What are the odds of gambling being legalised?

I don't know, I never gamble but I'll bet you it's high!

[bigbamboo]

Gamblers are 'quality' travellers in a Buddhist country?

[AleG]

Mt Thaksin and others were talking to the operators of Macau casinos in 2005 with a view to opening Thailand's first casino in the Chiang Mai province, one of Mr Thaksin's sisters attended the meeting.

The 2006 coup put an end to that.

I think we can safely assume that negotiations are on again. And it makes sense,Thailand is bleeding gambling money to every other country that surrounds it.

Well this may be true but so what the number of tourists coming is still growing.

Besides that the Gambling will take money away from other businesses. The small man will be squeezed harder. Here in Chiang Mai the talk was that they were going to tear down a market in the Night Bazaar putting the vendors out of business and build a large gambling casino.

I do not deny that gambling will bring in more tourists but at what cost to the culture of Thailand and the small business men.

I for one do not think it is worth the supposed gain. I say supposed gain as it is strictly for big business.

Just my two satong's worth.

You only have to see what wonders the casinos in Macau have done for it's culture.

[dcsw53]

Gambling is endemic here so regulate it.

1. Allow inward investment from the industry leaders.
   
2. Charge them fees competitive against Singapore and Macau ( not difficult )
   
3. Use these fees to improve the infrastructure. Compare the experience of walking down Sukhumvit, BKK, and Orchad Rd S'pore. Better pavements, less smells = happier punters.
   
4. Come down hard for once on illegal dens ( yes I know this is nigh impossible but at least try )
   
5. If ( when) a problem develops with locals bankrupting the family, charge admission fees like S'pore.
   

This should be part of a general policy to attract a better class of hooligan, then we might hope to see some good news and less of the drunken assult/rapes/mugging stories that are the daily fare of this site.

How you sack and rebuild the police force I will leavee to another correspondent.

[monkeycountry]

I could stick 200 Baht on red 27 for the missus. She gave me 200 Baht, I chose to stick it on a number and colour and won x amount of money. I decided to give my missus (by sheer coincidence) the same number as the winnings as a gift. You see where that might end up going.

Where you get a country with crippling corruption and heavy gambling addictions, you get a black market. The whole point of legalising it is to get rid of this black market. You would have to make it legal for everyone. Otherwise, keep it illegal. Either way, it's just different groups of people making large amounts of money. The poor don't factor in the profits at all. Well, they add to the profits.

This is just my opinion. Not saying it's anymore pertinent than yours.

I think that is a very theorethical example. Do you honestly envision a large queue of thais standing outside the casino handing over large amounts of cash to foreigners to gamble with on their behalf, knowing full well that these foreigners could simply take the money, go into the casino, put the money in their pocket, have a few drinks and come out an hour later claiming they lost it all??

And regarding the poor not factoring in the profits, how about the thousands of staff it takes to build a casino, or the thousands of staff that are employed in a casino? Or how about the fact that casinos, as witnessed in Macau, bring lots of additional tourists, that would not otherwise have come. These tourists all need food, transport, hotels, nightlife, tour arrangements etc., which would employ additional thousands of staff. Then comes all the extra tax revenue, which will benefit all thais, even after government officials skim the first 30%, there is still 70% left for the rest of Thailand, which will benefit both rich and poor.

[monkeycountry]

Mt Thaksin and others were talking to the operators of Macau casinos in 2005 with a view to opening Thailand's first casino in the Chiang Mai province, one of Mr Thaksin's sisters attended the meeting.

The 2006 coup put an end to that.

I think we can safely assume that negotiations are on again. And it makes sense,Thailand is bleeding gambling money to every other country that surrounds it.

Well this may be true but so what the number of tourists coming is still growing.

Besides that the Gambling will take money away from other businesses. The small man will be squeezed harder. Here in Chiang Mai the talk was that they were going to tear down a market in the Night Bazaar putting the vendors out of business and build a large gambling casino.

I do not deny that gambling will bring in more tourists but at what cost to the culture of Thailand and the small business men.

I for one do not think it is worth the supposed gain. I say supposed gain as it is strictly for big business.

Just my two satong's worth.

If you have seen the large modern casinos, such as Marina Bay Sands, the Venetian etc. you would not worry that they would take up the space from some night bazaar in Chiang Mai :-)

Further, the shops in the modern casinos and the shops at the night bazaar cater to completely different customers. You would probably not worry that the shops at Siam Paragon would steal customers from the night bazaar either :-)

[uptheos]

What are the odds of gambling being legalised?

I'll offer you 2/5

Wow, you think it's a sure thing eh?

The last time I took those odds was at Walthamstow and I walked home!

Thailand needs to come out of the dark ages and get rid of the Minister for Banning.

Edited February 7, 2013 by uptheos

[Globeman]

Personally, means zero to me, casino's are boring and a waste of time

but I think they should legalize gambling for a few reasons

1- good for tourism - check macau and vegas

2- Will help Thalland achieve their goal of being #1 on most corrupt list

3- Will ensure poor people stay poor and votes can be bought for casino chips

4- Will attract more dubious people to Thailand and will bring all their dubious money with them

Than again ............. maybe ..............

They could do the same as Singapore. Local citizens have to pay S$100 (US$80) a day or S$2,000 annually to enter the casinos. Foreigners enter free.

All this achieved in Singapore was raising more revenue for the govt, because 10s of thousand of Singaporeans queued up to pay their hundred smackers. $100 is nothing when you are entering a casino.

[Locationthailand]

The litter of repossessed assets from gamblers is global. I have seen friends (even a developer) go from owning a shopping centre to become a tenant within it, to losing everything and back to painting houses, broken marriage and alienation from his kids. The casino odds are stacked against any gambler. It's a sickness and once hooked, like drugs, the gambler always goes back for another fix. Okay then by all means, keep Thais throwing money away inside their own country but to what end? Using tourism as an excuse? The only reason governments want in, is for the taxes, another form of ripoff.

[screwit]

Do like in Switzerland in the past.max bet was 5francs.

You can not place more than 5 francs on the table.which is around 5 dollars.

For Thailand I would say 50 baths maximum.or 20 baths...

[uptheos]

For everything there is a sad story and people have got hooked on lots of things, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, porn etc, but that is no reason to ban something and I don't think we have any right to suggest that certain Thai's should not be allowed the same freedoms as any other Thai citizen rich or poor.

[monkeycountry]

Do like in Switzerland in the past.max bet was 5francs.

You can not place more than 5 francs on the table.which is around 5 dollars.

For Thailand I would say 50 baths maximum.or 20 baths...

Dunno if you are joking?, but noone is going to spend billions building a casino with max bets of 50 baht :-) I think in Macau and Singapore the min bet is around 200 baht.

Edited February 7, 2013 by monkeycountry

[GentlemanJim]

It will be the utter ruin of the people in this country. The urge to gamble is simply unbelievable. Stand by to pick up lots of cheap plots of land and houses if this goes ahead.

The only reason not to have casinos is because most thais think like you and have zero imagination. Easy ways to avoid what you describe:

1. Open casinos, but only allow foreigners to gamble. This would create lots of jobs for thais, and lots of tax revenue for the government, and not a single thai would lose any money.

2. Open casinos, but only allow foreigners and rich thais to gamble. Rich thais will gamble at casinos abroad anyway, so they might as well lose their money in thailand instead of abroad. At least this way part of the lost money will go to the Thai government as tax revenue, some of which will be redistributed to the poor, which should make everyone happy. Determining who is rich can easily be done by issuing a gambling license to rich thais based on an inspection of their assets, income, debt, taxes etc.

Well Monkey is that supposed to be a cheap shot or what? I make a one line statement and suddenly I am like most Thai's and have no imagination!! I see nothing in your 'Imaginative solutions' that is going to be effective, so why not swop your 'imagination' for a tiny bit of realism.

There is a post above showing how a previous system to allow only 'rich Thai's' to gamble failed, and simply because the owners would not care who comes through the door because all they want is your money.

[monkeycountry]

For everything there is a sad story and people have got hooked on lots of things, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, porn etc, but that is no reason to ban something and I don't think we have any right to suggest that certain Thai's should not be allowed the same freedoms as any other Thai citizen rich or poor.

"We" already do. Try getting a bank, house, car loan if you are a poor Thai, or a credit card, or a visa to the EU, or a membership to the local country club etc.

Edited February 7, 2013 by monkeycountry

[rayw]

As a person who abhors prohibition of any kind applied to adults then I think this would be a good thing as it leaves people the freedom of choice whether they gamble or not. If they gamble what they cannot afford to lose then as an adult they are responsible for their stupidity and not up to the Government to act as a nanny to them. As sane adults we are all responsible for our actions and should be free to carry out whatever we want to do as long as it does not affect, endanger and harm others directly, obviously that is simple sensible logic if we live in a decent society

I personally am not a gambler and on the couple of occasions in my life that I have been in a Casino I simply put £10 aside, as a sum I was prepared and could at the time afford to lose, for the enjoyment of the evening. I made it up to nearly £15 at one point and should have quit right then whilst on top, but carried on having a fun evening and lost it all and then quit with no bad feelings or regrets at all as I had had £10 worth of harmless fun. I never understand why folk gamble what they cannot afford to lose, it is like a drug to them, so sad but no body else's fault but their own I have to be hard and say . But it is NOT up to the law to nanny and molly coddle people from any thing like Gambling, Drugs (including soft drugs like tobacco, alcohol and marijuana), porn, or anything that should be an adult free choice and that is the whole point I am trying to make.

Sure legalising Gambling will leave a lot of fools without enough money to live on but prohibiting gambling just forces it underground where the sh*tty crap and childlike organisations like the much hated Mafia get involved in their abhorrent nasty anti-social ways. Prohibition just feeds crime, so learn that lesson well if nothing else Thailand.

Edited February 7, 2013 by rayw

[chooka]

The litter of repossessed assets from gamblers is global. I have seen friends (even a developer) go from owning a shopping centre to become a tenant within it, to losing everything and back to painting houses, broken marriage and alienation from his kids. The casino odds are stacked against any gambler. It's a sickness and once hooked, like drugs, the gambler always goes back for another fix. Okay then by all means, keep Thais throwing money away inside their own country but to what end? Using tourism as an excuse? The only reason governments want in, is for the taxes, another form of ripoff.

Aren't thais hooked on gambling already? So many are already gambling everything they have and the proceeds are going into the pockets of local mafias and corrupt officials instead of being poured back into the local communities. Gambling is here but it is all underground and protected by the authorities. Take it away from the BIB and others and give it to the country.

[uptheos]

Do like in Switzerland in the past.max bet was 5francs.

You can not place more than 5 francs on the table.which is around 5 dollars.

For Thailand I would say 50 baths maximum.or 20 baths...

Dunno if you are joking?, but noone is going to spend billions building a casino with max bets of 50 baht :-) I think in Macau and Singapore the min bet is around 200 baht.

Fifty baht maximum?

The locals at any bamboo bar already bet thousands on the Premier League football!

[chooka]

Do like in Switzerland in the past.max bet was 5francs.

You can not place more than 5 francs on the table.which is around 5 dollars.

For Thailand I would say 50 baths maximum.or 20 baths...

That's a lot of people who will go without a bath, imagine the odour and they say us farangs stink.

[kennalder]

Gamblers are 'quality' travellers in a Buddhist country?

Yes, you just need to look at it the right way, that being;

They have more money in their pockets upon arrival and less upon departure than all the "low quality tourists".

[spidermike007]

It will be the utter ruin of the people in this country. The urge to gamble is simply unbelievable. Stand by to pick up lots of cheap plots of land and houses if this goes ahead.

Yes, but there are already an enormous number of illegal casinos, card rooms, etc. So, what difference would it make? It would bring things above ground. And it might eliminate some of the gaming insects who already prey on the locals. Plus, it generates revenue for the govt., and that could end up benefitting some of the poorer souls. Not sure i see how this is a negative. Just a mature way of dealing with an already huge problem. I do not gamble. I prefer spending my money, to losing my money. But, you are right. Asians in general love to gamble, so does keeping it illegal solve, or help in any way?

[monkeycountry]

It will be the utter ruin of the people in this country. The urge to gamble is simply unbelievable. Stand by to pick up lots of cheap plots of land and houses if this goes ahead.

The only reason not to have casinos is because most thais think like you and have zero imagination. Easy ways to avoid what you describe:

1. Open casinos, but only allow foreigners to gamble. This would create lots of jobs for thais, and lots of tax revenue for the government, and not a single thai would lose any money.

2. Open casinos, but only allow foreigners and rich thais to gamble. Rich thais will gamble at casinos abroad anyway, so they might as well lose their money in thailand instead of abroad. At least this way part of the lost money will go to the Thai government as tax revenue, some of which will be redistributed to the poor, which should make everyone happy. Determining who is rich can easily be done by issuing a gambling license to rich thais based on an inspection of their assets, income, debt, taxes etc.

Well Monkey is that supposed to be a cheap shot or what? I make a one line statement and suddenly I am like most Thai's and have no imagination!! I see nothing in your 'Imaginative solutions' that is going to be effective, so why not swop your 'imagination' for a tiny bit of realism.

There is a post above showing how a previous system to allow only 'rich Thai's' to gamble failed, and simply because the owners would not care who comes through the door because all they want is your money.

Yes, that was a cheap shot, I aplogise. I just get annoyed when laws are made or not made without rational reasoning or any reasoning at all for that matter.

Police or other officials could be screening the guests, and if it is not possible to find non-corrupt police or officials (which it may not be), then simply only allow foreigners inside. problem solved! As someone mentioned above this approach already works in other countries.

My point is, if someone sat down and thought about it, instead of just saying no to everything without even considering it, then I am sure a system could be implemented that would make sure thais did not have to sell their houses due to gambling debt - at least not because of the legal casinos.

[Equalizer]

Improve infrastructure and attract "quality" travellers is urgently needed!!! Hang on a min, has anyone ever drove or been in a cab from the airport to pattaya after dark? I would class road lights as infrastructure and i may add the lights are there. So WHY dont they turn the F@@ing things on and stop penny pinching. More to the point stop putting peoples life at risk. This is a major highway for <Snip!> sake.

Edited February 7, 2013 by metisdead

[henrytuttle]

I've been involved in the casino industry most of my life. First as the son of a "casino tycoon", then being the managing director of a chain of casinos myself.

Casinos in Thailand are a bad idea if Thais are allowed in AT ALL. Thais are voracious gamblers and it will destroy the country. For those who say let in the rich as they do in Singapore, they are mistaken. The rich will soon start ignoring their businesses and spend all their time and money in the casinos. Casinos in places where locals are allowed to gamble are generally a bad idea. Places like Las Vegas and Macau work because the local population was relatively small in comparison to the gambling public.

That being said, if Thais are allowed to gamble, the casino owners will mint money. I'd be first in line to open one. But I love Thailand and the Thai people so I'd also be first to advise them not to do it. But, being in the casino business I always had to be ready to profit from people making stupid mistakes. I didn't encourage it. And I gave them as fair a shot as I could. But, in the end, if they were going to throw away their money, it might as well be me taking it.

[xen]

If the government gets a cut of the action in the form of taxes from the gamblers , isn't this just voluntary taxation ?

[Equalizer]

Personally, means zero to me, casino's are boring and a waste of time

but I think they should legalize gambling for a few reasons

1- good for tourism - check macau and vegas

2- Will help Thalland achieve their goal of being #1 on most corrupt list

3- Will ensure poor people stay poor and votes can be bought for casino chips

4- Will attract more dubious people to Thailand and will bring all their dubious money with them

Than again ............. maybe ..............

They could do the same as Singapore. Local citizens have to pay S$100 (US$80) a day or S$2,000 annually to enter the casinos. Foreigners enter free.

HAHAHAHA aint pay back a bitch? Can you imagine how the Thais would feel having to pay when farang get in free? I would love to see the faces. And i would be quietly thinking now you know what it feels like, suck on that suckers.