Transcript of the above video: 

I am kind of chuckling because I think I'm going to make the thumbnail for this, it's a clip from Saturday Night Live with Will Ferrell where he plays this terrible boss and he's like absurdly crazy, and there's this scene where he is talking to Pierce Brosnan who is a guest on the show and he is playing an applicant for a job at the third best Airline Magazine in America and he is just completely over the top and he said, "hey, hey, not on my watch, not on my watch". It just kind of popped into my head when I thought of making this video after reading a recent article in the Thai Examiner, that is thaiexaminer.com, the article is titled: PM Anutin vows there will be no casinos and that Thailand will go to the polls in March or April 2026. Quoting directly: "Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Wednesday, after his first Cabinet meeting, unveiled his agenda as Thailand's new leader. He confirmed the House of Representatives will be dissolved by the end of January 2026. Anutin also addressed constitutional reform the same day the Bhumjaithai Party revealed its plan with the progressive People's Party. The proposal calls for a 99-seat constituent assembly, deliberately excluding direct public participation, in line with a recent Constitutional Court ruling. Crucially, he ruled out any legalized casinos in Thailand. The Prime Minister announced that his Government's policy statement will be presented to Parliament next week, signalling a decisive, no-nonsense start to his administration."

Yeah, all joking aside, I don't mean to compare - I'll put a link in the description below to the clip referencing that scene - but I don't mean to go over the top in saying Anutin is that level of crazy, although the scene is funny in a sense; that was for comedic, lighten things up a little bit. But yeah, I don't think it is unfair to say that he is just getting down to it. There are only going to be four months to this Administration. They are going to do the policy presentation next week which that is my understanding based on the Memorandum of Understanding with the People's Party, that then triggers the mechanism if you will, the count down if you will of 120 days for dissolution of the House and then a subsequent election. So nobody is messing around here with regard to the issue of elections. 

Now that said, as I have discussed in other videos, this whole Casino thing, especially in the twilight if you will of the prior government, what I call the "Rump Coalition" primarily made up of the Pheu Thai Party and the acting PM who was also the Interior Minister for about the blink of an eye politically, during which time he did a lot of odd things, most notably packing the apparatus - primarily associated with the possibility of voting here in Thailand - but leaving that aside, I have done the videos on that. One of the things they were pushing was casinos and legalization of casinos through the past Parliament. My personal opinion is had they pushed that instead of backing off of it yet again; I actually made a pretty passionate plea if you will to former Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra a while back when I had far less of an issue with her, especially prior to the leaked phone call with Hun Sen, and I was in favour of the Coalition. I thought we had a working Coalition and a workable Coalition, but I made a rather impassioned plea to her to pull back on Casino legislation prior to the no confidence vote because it is a hot button issue here in Thailand, and it was something I thought could have wrecked the Government at that time. I didn't think at that time that was a good thing. Again subsequent to the leaked phone call, I kind of changed my mind on that issue. That said, my thinking on casinos, for anybody who has following my channel with any frequency over the last year and a half, 2 years, has changed quite considerably especially as it pertains to Thailand as well. I was rather open to it, became kind of ambivalent; now I am kind of a hard negative on it for a variety of different reasons. I just don't think casinos would necessarily be a good thing in Thailand, so I tend to agree with the incoming Prime Minister that yeah, just we are not going to have that. I don't think it would be good for the country, all things considered. 

Now as I have discussed in other videos, poker in my mind is a totally different animal. It's competitive, and it's one thing that notwithstanding many things I disagreed with Mr. Phumtham Wechayachai in both his capacity as acting PM, as well as his capacity as Interior Minister, I disagreed with a lot of things that he did. I didn't really politically not really aligned with him, but I do think his policy on poker was a good one which was basically we are going to declassify this as gambling per se, and start classifying it as akin to a sport, or competitive endeavour, a competition type of thing if you will, which those who know poker and understand it, it's not a matter of playing against the house, it is a matter of playing against other players. There is a dealer in poker but that dealer just; I have done that job - I did that primarily all through law school - but that person just basically administers the game between the players if you will. They are kind of like an umpire if you will in baseball, or a referee in basketball, football, soccer, whatever. It's akin to that, not so much akin to somebody who is acting on behalf of the house because the players are playing against the house. They are not playing against the house they are playing against each other. Now this different classification of Poker as well as certain actions thar Mr. Anutin took in his capacity as Interior Minister, or as I have discussed in the past, the sort of once and future Interior Minister, he made some moves that would seem to have eased up on matters pertaining to cards. It seemed to have something to do with gaming specifically.

How all of this sort of stacks up with regard to poker's legality in the future remains to be seen. I think it augers well. I don't think you can make any foregone conclusions right now, but I do think it augers well. But what we do know unequivocally, is there is not going to be any casino legalization anytime soon here in the Kingdom of Thailand.