BANGKOK:  , Thailand’s cabinet approved a controversial Bill on Monday ( Jan 13 ) to legalise gambling in designated “entertainment complexes” to boost tourism and create jobs.
The proposed legislation would permit games to be built within resorts and other entertainment complexes, including water parks, hotels, and shopping malls.
Illegal gambling is still common in Thailand, but it is only legal in some state-run horse races and an established lottery.
” The aims are to increase profits, help investment in Thailand and address improper gambling”, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra told reporters.
The Bill will be sent to the Office of the Council of State for drafts before being debated and approved by politicians in parliament, which will probably take several months.
Since the close of the COVID-19 crisis, which hammered Thailand’s important tourism industry, the nation has launched various techniques to lure more visitors, such as cutting immigration requirements for Chinese and Indian travellers.
Julapun Amornvivat, the deputy finance minister, stated that the government anticipates that the entertainment complexes will ultimately increase tourist numbers by 5 % to 10 % and lead to up to 15, 000 new jobs.
The place for the proposed structures, and the timeline for their development, have not been announced.
Liberal forces in Buddhist-majority Thailand have long resisted goes to legalise gambling, yet as dark game structures have sprung up in neighbouring Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
In a statement released last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned that organized crime used Southeast Asia’s games as “foundational parts of the bank architecture” to dirty enormous sums of money.