Gambling in Thailand for Tourists

What is legal for visitors: the short answer

Thailand offers visitors two gambling options: the government lottery and horse race betting in person at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club in Bangkok. Everything else, including casinos, sports betting, poker cash games, and all online gambling, is prohibited for foreign visitors and expats just as it is for Thai citizens⁵.

The lottery is the easiest one to try. Tickets are sold openly at street stalls and shops all over the country, and anyone can legally buy them, including tourists, as long as the purchase happens with a licensed vendor inside Thailand¹. There is no residency requirement and no special process for foreigners.

Horse racing is the other legal outlet. Betting is legal in person at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, the only track in the country where race betting still operates⁶. Race days are open to the public, and foreigners are welcome at the gate.

A big change may be coming. Thailand has been moving through parliament a plan for large entertainment complexes with legal casinos, and under the draft rules both tourists and Thai residents would be permitted to enter and gamble, with admission free for foreign visitors⁷. Nothing is open yet, so for now the lottery and the track remain the whole picture. You can read more about that plan on our page on Thailand's Entertainment Complex Casino Plan.

One more note for visitors: there are no legal casinos in Pattaya, Phuket, or anywhere else in the country, despite what tuk-tuk drivers or bar hosts may claim. Any "casino" offered to you in a tourist town is an illegal one, and being inside it is the same offense for you as for the locals.

The Thai government lottery: tickets, prices and draws

The Thai government lottery is a six-digit draw held twice a month, on the 1st and 16th of every month, with the draw conducted between about 2:30 and 4:00 p.m. Bangkok time⁸. A few dates shift for holidays: the New Year draw is held on December 30 instead of January 1, and draws that land on important religious days are moved⁸.

Tickets are paper slips, each printed with a six-digit number, and the official price is 80 baht per ticket¹⁰. In practice, street vendors often charge more for popular numbers. Tickets with "pretty" numbers, such as repeated digits or lucky combinations, or tickets sold in sets, commonly go for 110 baht and up¹¹. The face value never changes, so anything above 80 baht is the vendor's markup.

Each draw offers 14,168 prizes per batch, totaling 47,990,000 baht if all tickets in the batch sell². The headline prizes look like this:

If a batch of tickets does not fully sell, each prize amount is reduced proportionally¹².

Buying is straightforward. Look for the wooden and glass ticket stalls clustered near markets, temples, and intersections. Vendors display tickets strung on wire, and you simply pick the number you want. The lottery is deeply woven into Thai daily life, and many Thais buy tickets featuring numbers tied to car plates, dreams, or temple rituals. Draw days on the 1st and 16th are minor national events, with results checked on phones and in newspapers across the country.

There is also a digital route. Six-digit tickets are sold through the Paotang app, with the same 80-baht ceiling per ticket, which saves you hunting for a stall¹³. Our page on Thailand's Digital Lottery and the Paotang App covers that in detail.

Be aware that a large underground lottery exists alongside the official one, taking bets on the last two or three digits of the official draw, on the closing figures of the Stock Exchange of Thailand, and even on foreign indices like the Nikkei and Dow Jones¹⁴. It is illegal, and as a visitor you have no reason to go near it. Our page on the underground lottery explains how it works if you are curious.

How to claim a lottery prize and what is deducted

Prize money is paid to whoever holds the winning ticket and presents it to claim¹². As a foreigner, you claim by presenting your passport or another government-issued ID along with the winning ticket¹. Keep the ticket in good condition; a damaged ticket can be rejected.

You have two years from the draw date to claim a government lottery prize. After that, the money goes to state revenue². Claims are handled through the Government Lottery Office and partner banks, including the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives, Siam Commercial Bank, and Krungthai Bank¹⁵. The office processes claims on weekdays, with a queue system that handles up to 65,000 tickets a day, split between morning and afternoon windows¹⁵.

Small deductions apply. Government lottery winnings are fully exempt from income tax, but a stamp duty of 1 baht per 200 baht of prize money, or fraction of 200, is collected when you claim, which works out to 0.5 percent of the prize¹². Payment methods depend on the amount:

• Prizes under 20,000 baht are paid in cash
• Prizes of 20,000 baht and above are paid by check
• Bank transfers are available for larger sums, with inter-bank transfers up to 2,000,000 baht per transaction¹⁵

If you win a smaller prize, such as the 4,000 baht last-three-digits prize, the practical process is simple: take the ticket and your passport to a participating bank branch and the money is paid on the spot after the stamp duty.

Checking results is easy. Winning numbers are published on the Government Lottery Office website after each draw, and many people in Thailand receive results by SMS through subscription services¹⁶. Local newspapers and ticket vendors also post the numbers on draw days.

Horse racing at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club

The Royal Bangkok Sports Club sits at 1 Henri Dunant Road in the Pathum Wan district of central Bangkok, on land belonging to the Crown Property Bureau¹⁷. It is one of the oldest sports institutions in the country, and it is now the only horse racing club in Thailand where race betting remains¹⁷. Racing is held every other Sunday, alternating with the former Nang Leng racecourse, so race days come roughly twice a month¹⁸.

Race days are held every other Sunday, roughly from noon to 6 p.m.³. For current schedules you can call the club at 02 028 7272, extensions 1140 to 1147¹⁷.

Getting in is easy for foreigners. Admission is essentially 200 baht total: 100 baht at the gate and another 100 baht for an English-language racing program³. There is a dress expectation for men: wear shoes and a collared shirt. If you show up in flip-flops, they will be checked at the gate and you will need to rent a dress shirt and slip-ons³.

Betting is done at rows of windows on each level of the grandstand, marked by the monetary range of bets accepted at each window, and most tellers speak some English³. The minimum wager is just 50 baht³. Bet types range from simply picking the winner to trifectas, where you name the first, second, and third place finishers in order³.

A day at the track is a genuinely Thai experience. The crowd is a mix of serious handicappers studying form sheets and groups of friends treating it as a Sunday outing, with food stalls and cold drinks around the stands. If you want a quieter view, the upper levels of the grandstand are calmer than the ground floor around the betting windows.

Note that betting is legal only in person at the track. There is no legal online horse betting in Thailand⁶. Our page on horse racing in Thailand goes deeper into the race-day experience.

Online casinos and poker: the legal position

There is no legal online gambling in Thailand, full stop. No online casino, sportsbook, or bookmaker of any kind is approved or regulated by the Thai government, and this applies equally to tourists, expats, and Thai citizens⁴. The old Gambling Act does not even mention online gambling directly, because it predates the internet, but it bans nearly all wagering activities, and that has been read to cover online play⁴.

In practice, many offshore casino and betting sites accept Thai players and are reachable from anywhere in the country. Enforcement is difficult because most of the sites operate from abroad, but difficulty of enforcement is not the same as legality, and playing online in Thailand carries real risk⁴.

Poker deserves its own note. Cash poker, live or online, remains illegal, and being found in an underground poker room can mean a fine or even a year in jail²⁰. However, in August 2025 the government overturned a long-standing ban and made tournament poker officially legal, though the full legal framework for the new rules has yet to be implemented²¹. In practice, there has not yet been a documented case of an online poker player getting into trouble in Thailand, but that is a record, not a protection²². Our pages on poker in Thailand and poker tournaments for Thai players cover the scene in detail.

If you are an expat who plays online, be aware that payment methods are a constant headache, since Thai banks block gambling transactions, and that the legal position has not changed even as the market evolves¹⁹. Our page on gambling payments in Thailand explains the workarounds people use and the risks involved.

Penalties for players and enforcement in practice

The practical risk for a visitor caught gambling illegally is a fine. Under the Gambling Act of 1935, people found gambling are usually just fined, with penalties ranging from 500 to 5,000 baht depending on severity, though imprisonment of up to three years is possible for more serious cases²². Betting on the underground lottery specifically carries three months to three years and a fine of 500 to 5,000 baht¹⁴. Football gambling carries up to two years or a fine of up to 2,000 baht²³.

These laws apply to foreigners as well, and the authorities have been known to hold foreigners in jail pending deportation, with fines and deportation a common response²². For a tourist, the realistic worst case is a fine, a lost day at a police station, and a serious problem with your visa status; the realistic common case is a fine.

In practice, enforcement focuses on operators rather than players. Police run periodic crackdowns on underground lotteries and illegal gambling dens, and the underground lottery trade remains widespread despite decades of suppression efforts¹⁴. A visitor is unlikely to be targeted individually, but if you are sitting in an illegal den when one is raided, you are in the same room as the offense.

The one thing to be genuinely careful about is anything offered to you in tourist areas. Illegal casinos in Thailand are hidden venues, not storefronts, and the people inviting you in are taking no risk while you are. If you want the full picture of the law, see our page on gambling laws and penalties in Thailand.