Going All In: Thailand’s Failed Gambling Prohibition

While most countries have realised that simply denying their citizens access to a legal service will not dissuade them from participating in it Thailand doubled down on their anti-gambling stance by banning the pastime - not just online but offline as well.

As most failed forms of prohibition have proved across the world when you tell someone something they want is forbidden it only serves to make it seem that much sweeter.

✓Thai Gamblers Go All In

The Thailand Centre for Gambling Studies (CGS) has been tracking gambling participation amongst Thais since 2017, in this time they have found that just under 1.5 million new gamblers have joined the scene increasing the countries gambling population to more than 30 million.

To put it in context this means that nearly 60% of Thailand’s population has gambled in some form in the last 24 months. These are not penny-ante wagers either, the CGS reported the following stakes:

Sports betting – Bt160.5 billion (€4.7 billion)
Illegal lottery – Bt153.1 billion (€4.5 billion)
Legal lottery – Bt150.4 billion (€4.4 billion)

This in a country where the October 2019 Gross Domestic Product was calculated to be a mere €5705 this shows the massive financial investment Thais make in gambling.

✓Lucky Number 7

What makes the financials even more concerning is the breakdown of the age groups involved. Ideally you a healthy gambling economy receives the majority of its revenue from the middle to late age group – blocking underage gambling and keeping elderly gambling to a minimum is imperative as these groups are in danger of obsessive behaviours and racking up financial debts which they cannot honour.

With this in mind the CGS data for these two groups is concerning:

Underage, 15-18 years = 733,000 player (20.9%)
Seniors, 60+ years = 3.35 million players (42.2%)

Of the 700,000 new gamblers recorded by the Thailand Centre for Gambling Studies in their recent report the most shocking statistic was that one of the players is a child of only 7 years old!

✓Is The Government To Blame?

While they claim to be anti-gambling in order to protect the Thai population from the ills of gambling addiction the numbers clearly show that not only is their prohibition failing miserably but that they also are happy to benefit from the population's desire to gamble through a national lottery.

Dr Nualnoi Trirat, director-general of the Centre for Gambling Studies said:

"The Government Lottery Office prints more than 100 million lottery tickets for each draw, which far outstrips the country's total population of about 68 million people, this promotes a gambling habit, and incentivises people to buy more tickets."

Whether or not Thailand will consider reversing their hard stance and adopt the far more common avenue of legislation which will allow proper controls and bring additional revenues into government coffers is yet to be seen. However, with the marked rise in gambling and the tight management offered by online gambling tools it could be a game-changer for the country.