Horse Racing in Thailand

Horse racing in Thailand is a genuinely local experience: cheap entry, small minimum bets, and a crowd of weekly regulars who treat it as a social outing as much as a gamble. It is also one of the very few kinds of betting you can legally do in the country, but only at the track itself.

Where you can bet on horse racing in Thailand

Thailand allows gambling on state-controlled horse racing, the official lottery and a few sports such as boxing, and horse racing is the oldest of these³. The important practical point is where the betting happens: it is legal only inside the racecourse on a race day. There is no legal off-track betting shop, no legal bookmaker and no legal online option⁵.

The country once had eight racecourses, two in Bangkok and six in the regions, but the picture has narrowed a lot⁶. The Royal Bangkok Sports Club (RBSC) is now the only horse racing club in Thailand where race betting still takes place⁶. Regional tracks such as the Army Sports Club, Khon Kaen Sports Club, the Chiang Mai racecourse, Udon Thani and Roi Et are listed as regional racing authorities, but racing at many of them has been canceled or suspended in recent years, and some have closed⁵. In practice, a visitor who wants to bet on horses in Thailand goes to the RBSC in Bangkok or Nong Hor in Chiang Mai.

One rule worth knowing before you go: children and youths must not be allowed inside horse racing venues for betting, so this is an adults-only outing⁴. The rule on who may bet does not distinguish between Thai citizens, foreign residents and visitors. Anyone inside the course on a race day can place a bet at the windows, and the tellers at the RBSC generally speak enough English to get a foreigner through a simple wager⁸.

Royal Bangkok Sports Club: Bangkok's main track

There is one horse racing track in Bangkok, the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, and it is the most important track for horse racing in Thailand¹. It sits at 1 Henri Dunant Road in Pathum Wan, central Bangkok, on land belonging to the Crown Property Bureau⁶.

The club itself is an exclusive private members' institution, with a golf course, swimming pools, tennis, badminton and squash courts, a billiards room and even a chess room⁹. Do not let the word "exclusive" put you off: on race days the racing side of the club is open to the public, and anyone can pay at the gate and walk in⁸. The public grandstand is separate from the members' areas.

Getting there is easy. Take the BTS Skytrain to Siam station, leave by exit 6, turn right into Henri Dunant Road and walk about 400 meters to the course¹. That makes it one of the most accessible racecourses anywhere in Asia: you can be shopping in Siam Square at 11 am and standing at the rail for the first race at noon.

The racing itself has a distinctly Thai character. Only Thai-born horses can race in Bangkok, so you will not see imported thoroughbreds here¹⁰. The horses are smaller, the fields are local, and the form is hard for an outsider to read, which is part of the fun. The atmosphere is more like a neighborhood fair than a corporate race day: food stalls, families, old men with binoculars and cigarettes, and rows of betting windows on each level of the grandstand, marked by the monetary range of the bets you can make at them⁸. Most tellers speak some English, and the club publishes an English-language racing program for foreigners⁸.

For information by phone, the club lists 02 028 7272, extensions 1140 to 1147, for horse racing queries¹¹. An older published number for the club is +66 2 2510 181⁸.

Race days: schedule, times and entry prices

Race days at the RBSC are held twice a month, on Sundays¹. The first race starts at 12.00 and the last race is at 17.30, with 10 races on the card, so the afternoon moves along at a leisurely pace with plenty of time between races to study the form, eat and place your bets¹. The club held horse racing on Sunday September 13 and Sunday September 27, 2026, which gives you a sense of the twice-monthly rhythm¹¹. Because the schedule is only twice a month, it is worth checking the club's site or calling before you plan your day around it.

Entry prices are modest. General admission to the main stand is 100 baht, and there is a cheaper 50 baht enclosure if you do not mind a worse view¹. For foreigners, the realistic total is about 200 baht: 100 baht at the gate plus another 100 baht for the English-language racing program, which you will want if you cannot read Thai form sheets⁸.

Dress is casual by racecourse standards, but there is one rule for men: wear shoes and a collared shirt. If you turn up in flip-flops, they will be checked at the gate and you will be offered a rented dress shirt and slip-ons, which is a small comedy you can avoid with a little planning⁸.

A simple table for the two tracks you can actually visit:

Bet types and minimum bets

Betting at the RBSC is pari-mutuel style through the track's own windows, and the range of bets runs from simply picking the winner to picking trifectas, where you name the first, second and third place finishers in order⁸. At the most basic level you are choosing between a win bet and a place bet, and that is all a first-timer needs.

Minimum wagers at the RBSC are just 50 baht, so an afternoon of betting can be done on pocket change⁸. In Chiang Mai the minimum is even lower, 20 baht, and bettors there can place single bets or group bets¹⁰.

A few bet types you will see:

• Win: your horse must come first.
• Place: your horse must finish first, second or third².
• Trifecta: first, second and third in the correct order⁸.
• Group or combination bets: multiple horses covered in one wager, available in Chiang Mai¹⁰.

Payouts depend on how much money is in the pool and how many people picked the same combination, so long shots pay more. Because the fields are local Thai-born horses and the form is opaque, many visitors simply pick a name or a number and treat the bet as the price of an extra thrill. A 20 baht wager on a horse with an imaginative name is very much in the spirit of the day².

Nong Hor: Chiang Mai's Saturday track

If you are in northern Thailand, the racing option is Nong Hor Racing Track in Chiang Mai, a 15-minute drive north of the old city on the way to Mae Rim, just past the signs for the Tribal Museum². The track sits in Chang Phueak subdistrict, on land within the area of the 33rd Military District, and it is controlled by the military rather than by a civilian racing club¹².

Racing takes place every Saturday between about 12.30 pm and 5.30 pm, and Saturday is the only day of the week racing is offered in Chiang Mai². There are between eight and 10 events at each meet, with enough time between races to study the form and grab a bite to eat². Nine races are normally held on each card¹⁰.

Entry could not be simpler: you hand over 30 baht at the car park, and that same 30 baht is also the price of entry, so parking and admission are one transaction². Bets are usually for the horse to win or to place, and the minimum is 20 baht².

Two practical warnings for the English speaker. First, the racing lists available at the course are printed only in Thai, so you cannot read the form without help². Second, the track's status has been uncertain: in 2020 a nationwide horse racing page reported that the Chiang Mai track was rumored to be closed, pending an official announcement, and racing in Thailand generally has seen cancellations and track closures in recent years¹². The track has a website at www.chiangmai-horseracing.com, which is the best place to confirm it is running before you drive out². The crowd is a local one: research on Chiang Mai bettors found that most come with friends and bet every week on Saturday, so you will be watching a weekly ritual, not a tourist show¹⁵.

The closure of Nang Lerng Racecourse and the Royal Turf Club

Until recently Bangkok had two tracks, and the story of how it came to have one explains a lot about Thai racing today. The Royal Turf Club, founded in 1916, operated the Nang Lerng Racecourse on Phitsanulok Road in the Nang Loeng area of Dusit district⁹. For decades the two Bangkok clubs alternated: the Royal Turf Club raced on alternating Sundays, swapping weekends with the Royal Bangkok Sports Club¹⁷.

The end came over land, not racing. The Crown Property Bureau, which owned the Nang Lerng site, sent a letter in April 2018 terminating the lease and asking for the premises to be handed back within 180 days, along with any outstanding rent or tax¹⁸. The club's lease contracts for the track, a five-storey stand and two six-storey parking buildings had expired and were not renewed¹⁹. The final race meeting was held on September 16, 2018, drawing large crowds for a last nostalgic day at the fabled track¹⁶. The grounds were formally returned to the Crown Property Bureau on October 4, 2018, and demolition of the racecourse began in early March 2019²¹. The site is being turned into a Rama IX Royal Monument and a public park for recreation and exercise, so the old racecourse is becoming green space rather than a new development²².

The Royal Turf Club itself did not dissolve. Its board said the association would continue operations, and it planned to negotiate deferrals with its creditors until it could organize horse racing again²¹. A new track was tentatively planned in Nong Chok district in eastern Bangkok, but nothing has opened there, and the club has also floated ideas that ranged from winding down to building outside Bangkok²³. There has even been talk of the club's land being used for a casino project under Thailand's wider entertainment complex plans, which tells you how valuable the site was²⁴. For now, though, the practical upshot for a racegoer is simple: the Royal Turf Club no longer races, and the RBSC carries on alone in Bangkok.

Online betting is not allowed

Horse race betting in Thailand is legal at the track and only at the track. There is no legal sportsbook, no legal online casino and no legal bookmaker of any kind operating online in Thailand, and that includes horse racing⁵. The Gambling Act of 1935 is the law usually cited as the basis: other than horse racing and the lottery, all forms of gambling are illegal in Thailand, and the act does not provide for any licensed online operator²⁵.

In practice, offshore betting sites are reachable from Thailand, and some people use them, but they are not approved or regulated by the Thai government, so using one carries real legal risk and no local protection if something goes wrong¹³. If you want to bet on horses within the law, your options are the RBSC on a Sunday race day and, if it is running, Nong Hor on a Saturday. For the wider picture of what is and is not permitted, see gambling in Thailand, and for the online question in detail, see online gambling in Thailand.