STOPPAGE TIME
Thailand WEIGHING UP BETS on its gambling future

BANGKOK: -- Even if we decide not to legalise casinos, it would still be a gamble. That's why I don't quite get the ongoing fuss. Gambling is not just about money - it's about making a choice.

Between a rich but rather old suitor and a young but not-so-wealthy lover, who will you go for? What car will you buy - a Japanese brand you can resell at a good price, with service centres everywhere, or a European vehicle that provides greater safety but whose price will drop remarkably and whose maintenance problems are certain to give you headaches?

You know what I mean. At every stage of life we come to a juncture where we have to decide whether to turn left or right, knowing the consequences will be different. The legalised gambling proposal is no different, except that it waits for us at every corner. Our parents debated it. We are debating it. And most likely, our children and great-grandchildren will be debating it. That the casino proposal pops up to greet us at every turn confirms we have been ambivalent about it, which is a good gambling situation, in my book. Bad bets, I think, are the easy ones. There are such things as "no-brainers", like whether or not we should spoil the latest episode of "Game of Thrones" while speaking at a podium in a room full of 300 people, or whether you should call your invited guest "anti-Thaksin" on the invitation card. Whether or not we should legalise gambling in Thailand is a question that requires a lot more effort to answer.

All the same old arguments have come flooding back. Advocates of legalised gambling say we have an underground lottery as the most popular national pastime, for crying out loud. And the country is already crawling with illegal football bookies, their middlemen and clients. We are the world's biggest hypocrites where prostitution is concerned, so at least let's be sincere about gambling. Last but not least, don't forget the massive amounts of money heading to Cambodia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia that could have stayed in Thailand.

Not so fast, the other side insists. Doesn't the underground lottery exist because we have a legalised lottery in the first place? If legalised football bookies operated under strict measures to keep kids and poor people away, wouldn't that make underground "bet-first-pay-later" bookies even more popular? And while "hypocrisy" is often cited by legalisation advocates, what about the "slippery slope"? Last but not least, as far as offshore legal casinos are concerned, does that mean we have to imitate every lucrative business to become prosperous? Should we start dealing in narcotics, for that matter?

Then there are the other questions. Who would the prospective clients be? Would the casinos admit only tourists and rich people? Would there be more crime or less? Could corrupt law enforcement handle the new complexities or would our crooked politicians, police and regulators find a new gold mine?

Opinion polls are saying a vast majority of Thais want the people who matter - whether lawmakers or charter writers - to think it through. That's a nice compromise, though I wonder how they conducted the surveys. It's beyond me how they could find many people to answer questionnaires who have never in their lives made underground lottery bets. If the pollsters included underground-lottery bettors, what are the results supposed to mean? Are some people actually saying they prefer the current state of gambling affairs to remain illegal?

Morality and practicality can't always go hand in hand. Even making moral decisions is a gamble. And, of course, some things are better left illegal. But if, in the current state of affairs, the rejection of legal gambling is part of a campaign for morality, it can be too confusing. "Illegal" should equate to "immoral", right? Should gambling continue to cast an immoral, yet widespread, shadow over Thailand because morality needs to be preserved?

One can argue that, just because we are losing a battle against gambling, it doesn't mean we have to honour it by taking away the "immoral" or "illegal" label. If Thailand is to be overwhelmed and destroyed by illegal gambling, then so be it. Thailand should die with dignity, so to speak. So, we have three choices: Go for it, forget about it, or think twice, thrice and more. I'm betting my house that it will be the second and third choices combined. People will say, "Let's forget about this, at least for now, and in the meantime we will be open for more information." Thailand made that "safe bet" before and we will make it again.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Thailand-WEIGHING-UP-BETS-on-its-gambling-future-30262960.html


-- The Nation 2015-06-24

The last sentence in the OP is, in my opinion, the most apt definition of "Thainess" I have seen to date.

Pop it in the "too hard" box.

WEIGHING UP BETS

I'm sure that pun was intended here right? why not, legalize casinos, let the poor lose the little money

they have left if any, and that come out with amnesty/gift/ hand outs to clear the 'poor people'

debts to the casinos... this is a scenario with a predictable endings....

The only people to gain with prohibition are the criminals. The illegal non regulated gambling and loan shark activity that goes on all over is evidence that the current prohibition is far from a solution. My main concern about legalised gambling would be if it is structured to make money and keep the elite the elite at the expense of the ordinary man. Possibly soon Cambodia and Burma will follow others and allow visa free tourist entry and the visa run will be replaced by the casino run.

people who control the illegal business will also run the eventual legal one with minimal tax going to the state?

look at the lottery farce in this country ...

how much is a ticket ? before shoddy middleman up the price to more than double of it ?

aren't governors getting those for decades for free & then reselling them ?