My faux-French uncle has seven casinos in Rousillon. He taught his nephew that a gambler never beats the house. I learned that the hard way from personal experience as well as witnessing the exodus of Thai gamblers leaving the Cambodian border casinos.
Their shoes are scuffed, the clothing badly washed, and their faces painted with fourteen shades of desperation. Gambling is considered evil by Buddhists and the Supreme Monk’s disapproval has forestalling its legalization for decades.
Now times have changed.
After his visit to Cambodia Prime Minister Samak has challenged this edict by admitting he will seek to legalize gambling in the near future. His closest adviser voted his approval saying that Thai people shouldn’t be cheated at Cambodian casinos when they could be losing the family savings in a Thai gaming hall and also save fuel at the same time.
At present there is a zero tolerance of playing cards, dominoes, or football betting by the police, who seem to be adept at catching low-level gamblers with a pot of 200 baht.
Legalization?
Gambling has made big roads in America, especially with the Indian tribes who are in the process of buying back America from the losses of pensioners playing slots. States are promised revenue from these losses, which they then pay to retirees in eed of assistance. Thai politicans feel that the nation has matured enough to guard themselves against the predatory loan sharks and crooked card dealers. In the end gambling helps no one but the casino owners, as economist Pasuk Pongpaichit, co-author of the book Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja, states in a 2007 interview, “It would be a political deal with no social controls, but in the long run it makes no sense to criminalize gambling, partly because it results in so much corruption of the police. But we have to approach change in the right sequence.”
right sequence.
Legalization. gambling. Losses. Poverty. Desperation. Crime. Delegalization.
I bet the house that’s the way it goes.
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