Thailand online casinos for Real Money

Thai gambling law is largely formed from the Gambling Act, known as BE 2478/1935. What this does is effectively divide gambling games into two genres – List A and List B. List A includes games that are absolutely forbidden, and these include animal betting and blood sports, but also roulette and slots. List B includes everything that didn’t make the first list – including bingo, sports betting and more. This may seem as though List B might be illegal and List A, not so much. However, don’t misunderstand here – both are illegal.

The primary difference between List A and List B is that if you are caught betting on List A games, you’ll face harsher penalties than if you were caught playing List B games. The maximum penalties can include 5,000-baht fines or up to three years in prison. Other laws that work against you include the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the Playing Cards Act.

Despite this, horse racing (trackside in Bangkok) and Thailand’s national lottery are considered legal ways to bet in the country. Obviously, with such a limited array of options open to them, it is not surprising to see Thai players head to offshore casinos and sportsbooks to bet. There are risks involved here.

The Thai authorities regularly crack down on illegal gambling options. However, it is worth noting that Thailand rarely bothers dealing with its residents who gamble online. It does place blocks with some ISPs, though, in a bid to block Thai residents’ access to offshore betting sites. However, this blacklist isn’t particularly big or effective, as many Thai players opt to use VPNs to get around it.

Lottery gambling is legal in Thailand if you head over to the National Lottery, a state-run monopoly. This first appeared in 1933 and is one of only two ways you can bet. The second is at the Royal Turf Club or the Royal Bangkok Sports Club in Bangkok, where you can wager on horse racing via trackside bookies. Each of these authorities runs and regulates its own games, so there is no unified licensing body or regulatory authority in place in Thailand. Because of this, Thailand has struggled to crack down on illegal online gambling. This sometimes works in favour of Thai gamblers online.

While Thai players are not permitted to gamble at online casinos, they are not always prosecuted for doing so. The same is true of bingo and poker games, with sports betting particularly popular. We should stress that while your chances of getting caught (when using decent protection) are low, we cannot guarantee that Thailand won’t seek to punish you. Obviously, the risk is yours to take.

Thai players get most of their kicks playing at offshore betting sites. Poker is an immensely popular game in Thailand. Sports betting is also a major market in the country, with lots of ways to gamble on sports online away from the authorities’ gaze. Many Thai players also enjoy card games, although they tend to do this in the comfort (and security) of their own homes. Slots aren’t that popular in the country, with lottery and number-betting games seeming to be more prevalent amongst Thai bettors.

Apart from Thailand’s National Lottery, there isn’t really a games provider present in the country. This lotto company doesn’t even run online games. As Thailand hasn’t legalised online casino gambling, therefore, all the games or the developers you can find are located at offshore casinos. It’s a mixed-bag sort of affair when it comes to casino software providers. Some specialise in the Asian market; some are top-tier providers, and others you won’t have heard of.

All the sites that you see advertised as Thai casinos are based offshore – without exception. Therefore, they aren’t just open to accepting players from Thailand. These also take players from other parts of the world.

There is a large number of Asian-facing casinos that accept players from all over the continent. These will likely accept the Thai baht, and a good number of them also offer gameplay and support in Thai. These options are less common a typical Western-facing casinos that may accept Thai players. At those sites, they will likely need to use US dollars and play in English.