Sports Betting In Thailand
Almost all different types of gambling activities are illegal within Thailand. As per the legislation, online gambling sites are illegal within the country as well. That’s because they fall under the category of general gambling. There are only two exceptions, including betting on horses at a few selected racetracks and the national lottery. Although gambling is illegal in the country, around 70% of the adult population within the country engage with betting. The majority of the Thais are spending their time on online hosted websites. Meantime, it is also possible to find how some people are engaged in illegal gambling activities in back-street establishments.
Rise of online gambling platforms for sports betting
Since betting on racetracks is legal in the country, some people assume that online sports betting activities related to horse racing betting are also legal. However, no law in Thailand has clearly explained this. Even under such conditions, we can see more online gambling platforms being launched for people in the future. That’s because there is a demand to use online services among people who live in the country. When online gambling platforms are available, we can expect people to start using them.
The government of Thailand was banning access to online sports betting and gambling platforms available. However, people found their way to access such blocked platforms via VPN services. Hence, we can expect the government of Thailand to follow a policy such as, “If you cannot beat them, join them.” Yet, we cannot expect this to happen within this year. It will take at least another couple of years for the changes to happen.
The increasing popularity of sports betting with esports
Thailand has one of the most trending esports industries that can be found in South-East Asia. The esports ecosystem that you can find in the country is saturated. The government is providing excellent assistance to esports as well. But, sports betting has not entered the esports industry of the country. We can see how the leading esports giants of the country taking the initiative to fill in the gap. When you revisit history, you can see how they fought hard to get government support to the esports industry.
They will keep on fighting for the legalization of sports betting as well. Moreover, they will note that already legalized horse racing betting activities will serve them as a support point. It will provide them an excellent help in their fighting to get sports betting legalized along with esports. Based on this, other sports activities can be legalized too. So, we can keep high hopes on this to happen in a not so far future.
Even though we don’t see any progress to experience a promising sports betting industry within Thailand soon, numerous stakeholders are working on it. Therefore, people in Thailand can still keep hopes. They will only have to wait for a couple of more years until things will become favorable.
