Casinos in Thailand

Gambling in Thailand is illegal and you won’t find neither western-style casinos nor any types of casinos. The only form of gambling allowed by the law is the government run lottery which is drawn twice a month. You buy two tickets at price of 80 Bahts each /about 2 US Dollars/ and watch the national TV to see whether you win or not. The tickets can be bought from street resellers anywhere in Thailand. This only allowed by the law gambling is quite boring. But what is more interesting is that Thai people are natural gamblers and they bet on everything. Most popular are gambling on football matches, box matches, cock fighting, fish fighting and dog fighting but these types of gambling are done away from public in order not to attract attention.

The atmosphere is quite primitive and the bets are recorded in notebook, so watch out carefully for frauds. Nevertheless it is interesting aspect of Thailand. This could be the reason that these types of gambling in Thailand are so attractive not only for Thais but also for foreigners. It is estimated that annually more than 280 million Bahts /about 7 million US Dollars/ are generated by the underground gambling in Thailand. One alternative you have to gamble legally is to go to the borders with Cambodia or Malaysia as gambling there is permitted. That’s what some local Thai people do in the weekends and this is turning to be the so called gambling tourism. Or perhaps excitement in illegal gambling in Thailand seems to lay in the fact it is illegal.

You can try your luck with Thai lottery – it is easy and you don’t have to think about the laws. For more information you can visit the website of Thailand Government Lottery Office /only in Thai language/ http://www.glo.or.th