BANGKOK —Thailand is hoping that a new draft bill that aims to introduce entertainment complexes and casinos throughout the country will give its economy and tourism a much-needed boost. Experts say the prospect of building casinos brings both benefits and risks to the Southeast Asian country.

Thai officials announced last week that they expect a draft of the Entertainment Complex Act will be submitted to the Cabinet later this year and deliberated in parliament in the early part of 2025.

Officials are hopeful casinos will boost tourism and increase jobs for Thai citizens, contributing to economic growth. But critics say casino gambling goes against traditional Buddhist values and could feed into organized crime.

Last week, Julapun Amornwiwat, deputy finance minister, said the Finance Ministry completed a public study about the prospect of opening entertainment complexes. He also said that "the draft has recently undergone public hearings as required by the Constitution, with 82% of participants expressing support."

Building casinos has long been a goal for the government, said James Warren, a lecturer in the social science division at Mahidol University International College in Thailand.

"The idea of opening casinos has been proposed a number of times in the past, in particular during Thaksin's [Shinawatra] stint as PM," he told VOA via email.

"Some of the mooted benefits of opening casinos are that this would reduce corruption and the underground economy, while also creating jobs, encouraging investment and raising tax revenues," he said. "The most recent proposal can be seen as part of the Pheu Thai government's stated aim of bringing the underground economy overground."

Illegal, but common

As it stands, most forms of gambling in Thailand are illegal. But illicit gambling dens have long been common, with authorities frequently cracking down on them. Police have busted dens in a variety of locations over the years, including zoos and football stadiums.

Despite this, Thai governments over the past two decades have been eager to introduce legal casinos in the country.

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the father of current Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra of the ruling Pheu Thai party, laid out in an August speech a 14-point plan to improve the Thai economy, which included investing in entertainment complexes.

"The main purpose of the proposed casinos is to boost tourism and, in particular, lure back the Chinese tourists that were instrumental in Thailand attracting 40-million tourists in 2019," Warren told VOA.

Of the tourists who visited Thailand in 2019, 11 million were from China.

So far this year - between January and September - there have been more than 5.2 million Chinese visitors to Thailand, with 8 million forecast by the end of 2024, according to the Thai government.

Gary Bowerman, a tourism analyst in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, says Thailand's casino push contributes to its wide-scale tourism effort.

"Thailand sees integrated resorts as a missing piece of its tourism jigsaw," he told VOA. "Singapore and Macau have proved that upscale casino resorts can help diversify the visitor mix by combining cutting-edge hotels, entertainment, dining, shopping and lifestyle elements ultimately all funded by the casinos.

"Being a much larger country, Thailand will want these resorts to diversify the tourism offerings in different destinations."

Thailand officials hope that building several casinos across the country - including in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket - will boost the kingdom's gross domestic product by at least 5%.

Tourism crucial to economy

That's because tourism is vital to Thailand's economy, which overall is performing sluggishly, with a forecast GDP growth of only 2.4% for 2024, according to the World Bank.

The Thai government expects 36 million visitors by the end of the year and has an ambitious target to welcome 40 million visitors in 2025.

But the prospect of visitors entering Thailand for gambling purposes has some worried that casinos could lead to an increase in criminal activity.

Casinos are common in Southeast Asia, including in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines. But according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, casinos expand cyber fraud in the region, which is already rife with online scam centers that swindle billions of dollars a year from victims.

And there are concerns that could happen in Thailand, too.

"Academics and senators criticized the casino proposal during the 2001-2006 Thaksin administration on the grounds that gambling contravenes Buddhist precepts," Warren said.

Other criticisms are that casinos will encourage problem gambling, debt and related crimes. On encouraging criminals to come to Thailand, I would say that this would largely depend on how well regulated the casinos are."

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