bangkok: Thailand’s Cabinet approved a controversial bill on Monday to legalize gambling in designated “entertainment complexes” to boost tourism and create jobs.
The proposed law would allow casinos to be set up within tourism complexes which would also include theme parks, water parks, hotels and shopping malls.
Gambling in Thailand is currently legal only on a few state-run horse races and official lotteries, but illegal betting is widespread.
“The aim is to increase revenues, support investment in Thailand and solve illegal gambling,” Prime Minister Patongtaran Shinawatra told reporters.
The bill will go to the Office of the Council of State for drafting before being debated and voted on by MPs in Parliament – a process that will likely take several months.
Since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit Thailand’s vital tourism industry, the kingdom has launched several strategies to lure more visitors, such as cutting visa requirements for Chinese and Indian travelers.
Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornwiwat said the government expects the entertainment complexes to eventually increase tourist numbers by 5-10 percent and create 15,000 new jobs.
The locations for the proposed complexes and their construction timetable have not been announced.
Conservative forces in Buddhist-majority Thailand have long opposed moves to legalize gambling, even as questionable casino complexes have sprung up in neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned in a report last year that Southeast Asia’s casinos were “fundamental pieces of the banking architecture used by organized crime for large-scale money laundering”.
