Authorities are stepping up efforts to clamp down on gambling, which is illegal in Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Thailand.- Police in Thailand have arrested 21 people in an operation to shut down an illegal casino at the popular coastal destination Pattaya, southeast of the capital Bangkok.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A police investigation had identified casino operations running from an apartment in a condominium on Jomtien Beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five Thai nationals were held along with 16 foreigners (14 Chinese nationals, a Singaporean and a Cambodian). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five of the Chinese nationals had overstayed their visas and the Cambodian had entered Thailand illegally, police said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casino gambling is illegal in Thailand. Thai nationals are traditionally regarded as an important target market for casinos in neighbouring Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has been estimated that if casino gambling were legalised in Thailand it could bring in the country annual tax revenues of over THB100bn (US$2.8bn).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Authorities are stepping up efforts to clamp down on gambling, which is illegal in Thailand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Thai authorities have intensified efforts against illegal gambling, leading to the shutdown of an illicit casino in Pattaya and the arrest of 21 individuals, including foreign nationals, some with visa violations. This operation underscores Thailand's strict stance on gambling while highlighting the significant potential tax revenue, estimated at over THB100bn annually, if the market were to be regulated.","focusai_entities":"Police","focusai_location":"Thailand, Pattaya, Bangkok, Jomtien Beach, Cambodia, Singapore","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Thailand Legalization Outlook","query":"What specific legislative or political developments would be required for Thailand to transition from its current prohibitionist stance to a regulated casino gambling market, and what is the projected timeline for such reforms?"},{"label":"Regional Market Impact","query":"How would the potential legalization of casino gambling in Thailand, with its estimated THB100bn tax revenue, impact the GGR and player acquisition strategies of established land-based and online operators in neighboring regulated markets like Cambodia and Singapore?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,439,16333],"tags":[20326],"class_list":["post-13202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-legal-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-illegal-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13202"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13216,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202\/revisions\/13216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}