Thailand settles on four locations for casino resorts

• Thailand reveals four locations for future casino resorts called entertainment complexes
• The final stages of the law that legalizes such projects and how they would operate are being hammered out
• The arrival of entertainment complexes is set to create 40,000 jobs and attract 50m visitors

Thailand has finally settled on locations for its upcoming entertainment complexes, highly-debated investment projects that are still being hammered out by legislators and country regulators.

Thai casinos find their location, location, location

However, these projects are coming to allow the kingdom to boost its tourism revenue and pin itself on the casino gaming map in Asia and beyond. Now, four locations where such projects will be possible have been revealed, with Bangkok, Chonburi, Chaing Mai, and Phuket confirmed as the likely places where such developments will be based.

The news was announced last week, and originally reported by the Bangkok Post, which cited Nikon Boonwiset, Vice Chairman of a Special Committee overseeing the developments tied to the legalization of entertainment complexes.

According to the Thai government, the country is set to open 40,000 new jobs and bring in as many as 50m visitors every year, generating a significant windfall for the tourism industry. However, the entertainment complexes will not be explicitly about the casinos.

In fact, casinos will occupy less than 10% of the entire area of the projects, with other amenities and properties available, such as amusement parks, sports arena, and more.

Thailand has been wrangling with the issue of legalizing casino resorts and even tried to limit access to these properties to the very rich – or people who have more than $1m in bank deposits.

Further details are being hammered out about upcoming casino complexes

However, this proposal seems to be losing traction, although lawmakers have not ruled it out completely.

In the meantime, not everyone is cheering on the arrival of casinos. Onlookers have expressed concerns over the potential social ills, the spread of problem gambling and gambling-related harm, and not least – crime.

The government has mostly assured that those worries were unjustified. Some, such as the Stop Gambling Foundation, have warned that the arrival of casino resorts would create the opportunity for money laundering.

Similar things have happened elsewhere in the region, whereby wealthy individuals arrived and played high rollers to obfuscate the origin of their funds.

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