Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Casinos in Thailand, or let's say hypothetical ones. We have been discussing this since roughly last year in earnest because there has been serious talk and there was even a sort of a Commission formed to discuss the issue of legalizing gambling in Thailand and it has been kind of a topic. Meanwhile, I did a video about a week ago talking about the fire in Cambodia as tragic as that was, and whether or not that might impact thinking as far as Thai casinos went remains to be seen. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent comment on our channel, quoting directly: "I believe Malaysia doesn't allow locals to enter their casinos to curb the negative impact on the economy. Taking in big Chinese/tourist dollars would be good for Thai economy." Yeah, fair enough. Tourism dollars, they could be Chinese or whomever, I mean frankly there are a lot of high rollers out there, they are not all Chinese high rollers. Frankly some of the highest rollers I have ever seen as I recall were Japanese actually when I have ever seen, I used to work in a casino, in the casino business I should say, I have worked in multiple casinos. The point of the video though came down to this issue of again quoting: "Malaysia doesn't allow locals to enter their casinos." Yeah, that has been a popular tool in this region for trying to mitigate the negative consequences of having gambling in a given jurisdiction. I have seen this over in Cambodia as well where they don't allow Khmer into the casinos; the Khmer can't go going to the casino and can't play. A couple of reasons I think that is not going to happen in Thailand. One, I don't think Thais would stand for, I have got to be honest and count myself among this number, I don't think Thais would stand for having a venue in their own country they can't go into and I have got problems with that. To me it is inherent to being a Thai that you can do what any just regular, ordinary old Thai person can do, what anybody can do. I see that as being kind of antithetical to having a casino that Thais can play in frankly. I don't think that is a good idea for a variety of different reasons and I think it is again kind of antithetical to the very notion of being Thai. For those who are unaware, I am a naturalized Thai citizen. I know I don't look the part but I am Thai.

My thinking, better than dealing with sort of a ban of nationalities, just do a bet limit, it's really not difficult. Folks are going to have to present their ID, in Thailand they are going to have to present their Thai ID when going into the casino. The way to deal with that is for local nationals, put a bet limit on them. I remember in Kansas City, I don't know if this is still the case, but Kansas City the casinos up there at the time I was around, they used a bet limit. I don't remember how it worked but it was part of the legal infrastructure that sort of undergirded the legalization of gambling on riverboat casinos at least in Kansas City that stipulated "hey you can only, I think at the time it was $500 dollars an hour was the max you can lose in the casino and they used player cards and things to keep track of how much you bought in for. So essentially the loss limit is effectively a buy limit; you can only buy in for example $500 an hour. I think you could easily put a system like that in Thailand. You wouldn't need to ban locals, you just basically say "hey look, Thai nationals can only gamble X amount a day or X amount an hour", whatever. Easily done. Player cards are now ubiquitous in casinos but you can also deal with it at the point where you are checking ID. Somebody presents a Thai ID card and you run it through the system, make sure they are of age and then you basically just say "okay you can buy a maximum of X amount of chips". Now foreign nationals can buy whatever they want and for that matter presumably lose whatever they want while at the same time you are kind of mitigating against those problems with the locals, while not actually banning them from the premises.