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As the thumbnail nail, folks who might have seen the movie Wyatt Earp, they might recognize that is Dennis Quaid's Doc Holliday, when Doc Holliday is explaining to Wyatt Earp that he is a sporting man. For those who are unaware, what are we talking about with regard to sporting, competitive cards? It's an issue that has come up here recently and I think will continue to be something of an interesting legal issue moving forward. So notwithstanding the problems I had with Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai, former acting Prime Minister of Thailand as well as the Interior Minister, most notably his background with the Communist Party was my big issue, but that said during his tenure in the Interior Ministry he did effectively have Poker changed from being considered gambling to being considered a sport. Basically he utilized certain powers that he had inherent to him in his capacity as the Minister of Interior to change the way that that is viewed under Thai Law - specifically pursuant to regulations pertaining to Gambling Acts that were passed sometime about the 30s if I recall correctly. 

Now Mr. Anutin in his prior incarnation as the Minister of Interior also made some moves, kind of relaxing the stringent view if you will of cards, that is playing cards here in Thailand. And I think it is important to point out the notion of "competitive cards" versus "house games." House games is what I think anybody, any layperson, would consider gambling. If you are playing Blackjack against the House, that's effectively gambling. Now that said, Poker or maybe even Gin or maybe even the game of Bridge, these kind of card games, these are competitive; these are where people are playing against other players. Now most relevant to the current discussion here in Thailand is Poker. Poker which has a wager element, and it has been known to be spread in various casinos around the world - there are poker rooms in various casinos around the world - but that said, they are different fundamentally from House games where you are playing against the House. And I think more and more, this is going to become an increasingly, it's going to become a topic of interest in relevant legal circles here in Thailand as we start to see some demand for competitive cards. 

Now the question is, and it can be a question that comes from a rather nebulous place which is, "What's the difference between competitive cards and house games or “gambling”? What's the difference between competitive cards and gambling?" And to just throw two memes up here, because I immediately thought of "oh it's a gray area" and there is this scene from the movie Fletch, where his editor says, "Well how gray?" and then Chevy Chase looks back at him and he says, "charcoal." For now, it's kind of hard to tell exactly how this is going to play out. 

So those who are interested in Poker or playing cards specifically here in Thailand, especially where there is a wager element involved, probably a good idea not to just go running into this, to just go jumping off a cliff on this whole issue without first seeing some kind of legal framework come to the foreground. Now exactly, again how this plays out remains to be seen, so we are going to keep an eye on it. But for now, yeah, it's a gray area, but again per the meme, "charcoal gray" kind of thing; that's how to think of it for now. Because look, if you are a foreigner over here and you get cited for some sort of gambling violation, that could even lead to deportation under certain circumstances. So again we are in kind of this interesting moment where Poker is considered a sport rather than gambling now, and we have also seen indications from Mr. Anutin's prior tenure in the Ministry of Interior that he may be amenable to Poker, or relaxing rules regarding what I could call "competitive cards" which could include Poker. Now that said, again a conclusion on this remains to be seen, so we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.