The Thai cabinet last week approved a draft law aimed at establishing casinos in billion-dollar entertainment complexes in tourism hot spots to set the stage for a boom in tourist arrivals. It now goes to an ad hoc committee to review and potentially amend it. But despite what is described as a “significant step” toward eventual implementation, it faces major hurdles before it goes to final passage – including the government in Beijing, which is blowing cold on yet another Southeast Asian mecca to lure Chinese gamblers.

Four rounds of public hearings have been conducted, with more than 71,000 participants taking part, and with 80 percent expressing support for the bill, whose passage – if indeed it gets by several hurdles – is expected to drive up tourism revenues by as much as US$15 billion annually, with some of the world’s biggest international gaming concerns expected to vie for franchises. Parliament is expected to deliberate on the bill by April 9th, according to Chief Government Whip Wisut Chainarun.

Thailand is, by far, Asia’s biggest tourism destination, particularly for Chinese and Eastern European tourists, earning US$48.45 billion in 2024. That would mean tourism would comprise nearly 12 percent of Thailand’s US$526 billion 2024 GDP – barring anything more like the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that rattled the country on March 29.

“The timing of this law is unfortunate,” said Steve Vickers, the CEO of the eponymous Hong Kong-based risk consultancy. “The PRC government is currently making a strenuous effort to limit capital outflows, to crack down on online gaming networks that have been siphoning funds out of China, and also to stamp out the satellite casinos mushrooming in weakly governed parts of Southeast Asia. Many of those illegal operations have linkages to former Macau junket operators. Thailand’s full-scale opening of its gaming sector will almost certainly result in some frictions between Beijing and Bangkok.”

Sisdivachr Cheewarattanaporn, the president of the Association of Thai Travel Agents, told local media in Bangkok that the Chinese government has consistently shown unease about the legalization of cannabis, which Thailand legalized in 2022, and the passage of the entertainment complex bill. Numerous cannabis dispensaries have been established since the passage of the bill. And while technically, all dispensaries are for medical purposes, they don’t require buyers to provide a doctor's prescription.

The casinos are another matter. Beijing has been bedeviled by gaming in Cambodia, the Philippines, border areas of Laos and Myanmar and across the South Pacific, leading to tribulations including capital flight, organized crime activity, loan sharking, kidnapping and money laundering, among other problems, particularly from online gaming, which has lured millions of Chinese to their home computers to lose vast amounts of money, not only in gambling losses but to lonely-hearts and pig butchering scams.

To give some idea of the magnitude of capital flight due to gaming, in 2019, a state media report claimed that online illegal betting operations by just one operator, the then-Macau-based Suncity, in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines had turnover in Mainland China alone that was equivalent to US$145 billion a year, larger than the only legal form of betting in Mainland China, the state lotteries, according to a 2023 study by the Asian Racing Federation Council.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping demanded a crackdown in 2019 in the coastal resort city of Sihanoukville in Cambodia that led to the almost-instant departure of 200,000 mainland Chinese and the closure of 73 casinos that ran arcade gambling. In the Philippines, at least 298 online gambling hubs were operating until the end of last year when President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, after meeting with Xi, ordered them closed because of the problems they were causing. Some of the establishments, called Philippine Online Gaming Organizations, or POGOs, featured hundreds of workers, many of them coerced, kidnapped, or tricked, participating in the scams. Although they were all ordered closed, Philippine police periodically continue to find them operating illegally.

Last November, Singapore was forced to implement a multi-pronged national strategy involving the Police Force, the Central Narcotics Bureau, and the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to combat money laundering after a massive raid uncovered a Chinese criminal gaming diaspora, with police arresting 10 China-born suspects, seizing assets eventually estimated at over US$2.8 billion. The scandal led to stricter scrutiny by the authorities of Singapore and China of family offices, particularly Chinese ones, as wealthy individuals sought to get their money out of China and place it overseas.

The Association of Thai Travel Agents’ Cheewarattanaporn told local media that Beijing is likely to limit the number of Chinese tourists allowed to visit Thailand annually out of a perception that gaming establishments are potential facilitators of money laundering. Thailand implemented a 30-day visa-free policy for China a year ago, later extending that to 60 days. China remains Thailand's biggest source of foreign tourists, comprising 6.7 million of the 35.5 million travelers who visited the country in 2024.

There are related problems with the gaming bill, including a provision Thai citizens must be able to show a minimum of THB50 million (US$1.475 million) maintained in a bank account over the prior six months before they are allowed to enter casinos, a restriction designed to mollify conservatives concerned that the country’s population will become addicted to gambling – although illegal gaming establishments are rife all over the country. In February, Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra visited Beijing to meet with Xi over online scam centers run by Chinese criminal syndicates along Thailand’s borders with Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

“The law’s requirement that Thai citizens have THB50 million in fixed deposits will essentially shut most locals out of the casinos,” said Vickers. “For the integrated resorts (casinos) to be financially sustainable, the gaming companies will simply have to draw in mainland Chinese clientele, enticing them to gamble.”

Even without the considerable shadow of corruption, and the possible arrival of international organized crime which has plagued virtually every other gaming venue in the world, the Thai government has never shown itself particularly adept in planning major initiatives. As Asia Sentinel reported on March 14, the initiative to legalize casinos “faces challenges, compounded by political instability and internal divisions within the government,” according to a study by the Bangkok-based Maverick Consulting Group. “Inconsistent policies and shifting priorities further contribute to uncertainty surrounding the project's progression. These issues, combined with the broader unpredictability of the political landscape, cast substantial doubt on the feasibility and future of the proposed initiative.”