Casinos in Thailand

Casinos in Thailand: what is legal now

There are no legal casinos in Thailand. Casinos have been completely banned in the country for many years, and that remains the position today⁵. If you are looking for a casino floor in Bangkok, Pattaya or anywhere else on Thai soil, you will not find a licensed one.

What Thailand does have is a legal gambling scene of a different kind: the government lottery, horse racing at the state tracks, and a range of traditional games that people play at home and in underground settings. Card games like Pok Deng are hugely popular and are found in underground casinos, since gambling is largely illegal outside the permitted exceptions⁵. For the wider picture of what you can and cannot do, see gambling in Thailand.

The practical reality for a visitor is simple: any venue in Thailand offering casino table games or slot machines is operating illegally, and taking part carries a real risk of trouble with the police. That is why the question "is there a casino in Thailand" almost always leads to one of two answers: wait for the entertainment complexes, or cross into Cambodia.

The Entertainment Complex bill and what it would allow

The big change on the horizon is the draft Entertainment Complex bill, which would legalize integrated resorts with casinos for the first time. A draft bill was anticipated for enactment in early 2026, and it remained before parliament into the year⁶.

The complexes are envisioned as massive developments, around $2.9 billion each, featuring five-star hotels, theme parks, and casinos⁶. Each one would include components such as a hotel, a shopping mall, an amusement park, bars and restaurants, with the casino as one part of a much larger leisure destination⁷. The model is closer to Singapore's Marina Bay Sands or Macau's Cotai Strip than to a standalone casino.

Key features of the draft bill:

• Foreign visitors would be allowed to play in the casinos⁸
• The minimum gambling age would be 20²
• Thai nationals would face the entry levy and deposit rules described below
• The government would have the final say on where each complex is built¹

For the full picture of the plan, the timeline and how the resorts would work, see Thailand's Entertainment Complex casino plan, our in-depth page on the bill.

Where the casinos would be built

Five potential sites have been identified¹.

An earlier government panel proposed the same shape, one casino for each of the country's five regions, with Pattaya as the target site for the central region, Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai for the north, and Bangkok or an adjacent province as the prime location⁹.

The bill requires the complexes to sit in specific tourist zones such as Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket and Chiang Mai⁷, and likely targets for investment are Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Pattaya². Major operators have already shown interest: Galaxy Entertainment has confirmed a sole focus on a Bangkok project¹⁰.

One concrete proposal is already on the table for the capital. The Royal Siam Haven, planned for a 1,200-rai plot in Bangkok, would include a horse racetrack, a golf course, a yacht club, a sports complex, a six-star hotel, luxury restaurants, a wellness hospital and a casino¹³. Construction was slated to take seven years, and the casino portion cannot proceed until the law passes¹⁴. In other words, even after enactment, the first Thai casino is years away.

Entry levy: 5,000 baht for Thais, free for foreigners

The draft law takes a two-tier approach at the door. Foreign visitors would enter the casinos free of charge². Thai nationals, by contrast, would be required to register and pay an entry fee of 5,000 baht, roughly $148, each time they enter¹¹.

The levy is deliberately high. It is modeled in part on Singapore's casino entry levy, which charges locals an annual pass of 2,000 SGD, and the idea is to make casual repeat visits by locals expensive while keeping the doors open for tourists². Foreigners would need to present a passport or equivalent document at entry.

The 50-million-baht deposit rule for Thai nationals

The entry fee is only half of the hurdle for Thais. The draft law would also require Thai nationals to show proof of at least 50 million baht in bank deposits, about $1.47 million, to enter the casino floor¹². More precisely, they must have held that amount in a fixed deposit account continuously for no less than six months¹².

The combined effect of the levy and the deposit rule is that only the wealthiest slice of the Thai population could legally gamble at home. Commentators have noted that the requirements would effectively block a large percentage of Thais from entering, and that most would continue to visit illegal gambling dens or casinos in neighboring countries instead¹⁵. If you are a foreign visitor or expat, none of this applies to you: the deposit rule targets Thai nationals only.

Taxes on gaming revenue and government take

The bill proposes a 17 percent tax on gross gaming revenue from the casinos², a figure operators have also been told to expect¹⁰. On top of that, the government expects to collect 30 percent in taxes from each entertainment complex overall, once other levies and contributions are counted⁹.

For players, the more relevant number is the withholding tax. Thailand imposes a 15 percent withholding tax on gambling winnings exceeding 1,000 baht¹⁶. If the complexes open, winnings would be taxable as assessable income under the Revenue Code, and the details are on our tax on gambling winnings page.

Estimates of the market are large. Analysts have suggested the plan could put Thailand behind only Las Vegas and Macau in global gaming revenue², and that the country could become the main gambling hub in Southeast Asia⁸.

Online gambling: what the bill does not cover

One thing the Entertainment Complex bill does not do is legalize online gambling. The bill did not address online gambling at all; it is land-based only¹⁵. There is no legal sportsbook, no legal online casino, and no legal bookmaker of any kind in Thailand¹⁵.

The old Gambling Act of 1935 bans most forms of gambling, including online betting and casinos, allowing only limited activities such as the state lottery and horse racing¹⁸. Offshore sites are accessible in practice, and enforcement is difficult because many gaming websites are international, but playing online in Thailand carries genuine legal risk¹⁷. For what people actually play online, and how, see our pages on online gambling in Thailand and casino games Thai players play, which covers the slots, poker rooms, live dealer tables and traditional games like Hi-Lo that Thai players favor.

Playing across the border: Poipet, Cambodia

Until Thailand's complexes open, the practical answer for a casino trip is Cambodia. Cambodian casinos are located mostly in the border towns of Poipet, near Thailand, and Bavet, bordering Vietnam, with others in Koh Kong and Sihanoukville⁴. Poipet sits on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, and its Star Vegas Club and Casino is often described as the closest legal gaming destination to the Bangkok area⁴.

The Poipet casinos are allowed to operate legally on the Cambodian side, and they cater to Thais, thousands of whom cross the border at weekends to gamble, along with visitors from China, South Korea and Malaysia¹⁹. The minimum gambling age in Cambodia is 18¹⁷.

A few things to know before you go:

• Bring your passport; you are crossing an international border
• The casinos are clustered in the border town, so you can walk between several of them
• Weekend crowds are heavy with day-trippers from Bangkok
• Thai authorities have noted that a legal Thai casino industry would pull much of this traffic back over the border⁸

For more on cross-border options, including other nearby jurisdictions, see gambling trips abroad from Thailand.