Gambling in Thailand

The gambling scene

Thailand's gambling offer is the twice-monthly government lottery, digital lottery tickets on the Paotang app, betting on horse racing at state-licensed racecourses, and tournament poker, newly opened up in 2025. The only forms of gambling the state permits are the government-backed lottery and horse racing³, and poker tournaments joined them after Acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai signed an order legalizing poker for money under controlled conditions³.

Beyond that, the scene is mostly informal. Card games like Pok Deng are played in parks and open spaces across the country⁹, underground lotteries run alongside the official one¹⁰, and illegal casinos operate quietly, with the dice game hi-lo as their main attraction because it costs little to run⁵. The government's answer to all this is a plan to build large entertainment complexes with legal casinos, the first expected to open in 2029⁴.

If you want the full picture, our in-depth pages cover gambling laws and penalties in Thailand and the history of gambling in Thailand. The short version: gambling has been officially banned since the Gambling Act of 1935⁵, and before that King Rama VI prohibited casino gambling in 1916⁵. The practical risk of illegal gambling is a fine and jail time of up to a year if you are caught¹¹.

Casinos and resorts

There are no legal casinos in Thailand today. Casinos have been completely banned for many years¹¹, and that has not changed yet. What has changed is the plan: the government is moving forward with entertainment complexes, large resort developments that would include licensed casinos, and a Maybank forecast suggests Thailand could see its first integrated resorts as soon as 2029⁴.

The locations under discussion are two complexes in Bangkok, one in Chiang Mai and one in Phuket⁵. Both tourists and Thai residents are expected to be permitted to enter and gamble⁵, though with very different costs: admission for foreign visitors is planned to be free, while Thai citizens would pay an entry fee of $215⁵. Draft regulations also require foreigners to present a passport or equivalent document at the door, with facial recognition used to verify identity¹².

For now, though, this is all plan and no product. Our pages on casinos in Thailand and Thailand's entertainment complex casino plan track the details, and casino games Thai players play explains which games Thai players actually favor when they play, legally or not.

The lottery

The government lottery is the heart of Thai gambling. Draws are held twice a month, on the 1st and 16th, with a few fixed exceptions: the New Year draw is held on December 30, the Teachers' Day draw on January 17, the Labour Day draw on May 2, and draws that fall on important religious days are moved¹³. A ticket costs 80 baht¹, and each full set of tickets carries 14,168 prizes totaling 48,000,000 baht¹⁴.

The main prizes, per set if all tickets are sold¹⁴:

Prize money goes to whoever holds the winning ticket and presents it to claim¹. You have two years from the draw date to claim a government lottery prize before the money goes to state revenue¹⁴. Prizes under 20,000 baht are paid in cash; prizes of 20,000 baht and above are paid by check from the Krungthai Bank Government Lottery Office branch, or by bank transfer, with inter-bank transfers up to 2,000,000 baht per transaction¹⁵. Stamp duty of 1 baht per 200 baht of prize money is deducted when you claim¹⁷.

Tickets are sold through a vast network of street vendors and agents, and popular numbers cost more: tickets with pretty numbers or sold in sets run 110 baht and up¹⁸. The official buy-and-book system in advance covers up to 69 million tickets per draw¹⁹.

Several offshoots of the official lottery exist:

• Thailand's digital lottery and the Paotang app: digital six-digit tickets sold through the Paotang app at no more than 80 baht each, launched June 2, 2022, with at least 5 million tickets available and more than 10,500 contracted agents⁷. From the September 16, 2024 draw onward, 2 million additional digital tickets were added mid-period⁸.
• The N3 three-digit lottery: a digital-only product sold through Paotang, created partly to fix the problem of tickets being resold above face value, since buyers choose their own numbers. It has four prize categories, with payout ratios announced before each draw²².
• The underground lottery (huay tai din): the illegal numbers game that shadows the official draws. It pays 400 to 500 baht per 1 baht bet on three digits and 60 to 70 baht per 1 baht bet on two digits, depending on the region and the year¹⁰. Results follow the government draw on the 1st and 16th of each month, with betting closing around 14:30 and results around 15:30¹⁰.

Our main page on the Thailand lottery has the full prize table, claim process and buying guide.

Sports betting and racing

Betting on boxing and horse racing is allowed in Thailand¹¹, and horse racing at state-licensed racecourses is one of the only two long-standing legal forms of gambling in the country⁵. Racing historically has been run twice a week, on Saturdays and Sundays, alternating between the two Bangkok courses²³. Everything else in sports betting sits outside the law: there is no licensed sportsbook, and no locally regulated online operators⁶.

Our pages on sports betting in Thailand and horse racing in Thailand cover what actually happens, from the racecourses themselves to how Thai bettors follow football through other channels.

Poker

Poker is the newest legal arrival in Thailand. In August 2025 the acting prime minister signed an order legalizing poker games for money under controlled conditions, overturning a long-standing ban³. A full legal framework governing the new law has yet to be implemented³, so the practical picture is still forming.

Before the change, poker lived in a strange gray zone. Texas Hold'em and other poker games were not specifically illegal as games, but the restrictions around them made playing for money illegal in practice²⁴, and underground poker rooms operated anyway²⁴. Online, the major rooms have been accessible in Thailand, including PokerStars, PartyPoker, iPoker and America's Cardroom, and there has been no known case of a poker player getting into trouble playing online²⁵.

Tournament play is where Thai poker is most visible. The Thailand Poker Championship 2024 by N8TH ran with a 990 baht buy-in and a 1,900,000 baht guaranteed prize pool²⁶, with satellites as cheap as a 20 baht step feeding into it²⁶. Thailand-exclusive online series have offered 800,000 baht in APT Taipei Poker Classic main event packages plus a 125,000 baht prize pool, with each main event seat worth 55,500 baht²⁷.

Read more on poker in Thailand and poker tournaments for Thai players.

Local and traditional games

The game most Thais grow up knowing is Pok Deng, a fast point-comparison card game also called Pok Kao or Pok Eight Pok Nine²⁸. The dealer decides whether to deal clockwise or counterclockwise²⁸, the element of chance is high²⁸, and it is traditionally played in parks and open spaces across the country⁹. In the online casino version, the stake is whatever the house sets⁹. Because gambling is largely illegal, Pok Deng is mostly found in informal settings and underground casinos⁹.

Hi-lo, a dice game, is the main attraction of most small to medium-sized illegal casinos because of its low maintenance cost⁵. Historically, national-level gambling dens in Bangkok clustered in four areas: King Petch, Pratunam, Sukhumvit and Si Yak Kow Kao²⁹.

Our pages on Pok Deng and traditional Thai gambling games go into the rules and the culture around them.

Online

There are no online casinos approved or regulated by the Thai government⁶, and no locally regulated online operators at all³⁰. In practice, many residents gamble online with offshore operators anyway³⁰, and offshore sites actively court the market: one directory counts 867 casinos accepting players from Thailand⁶. The games on offer at these sites include roulette, poker, blackjack, virtual slot machines and, on some, Pok Deng⁹.

A distinctive feature of the Thai online market is the agent system. Thai agents become customers of foreign gambling websites, receive credit plus a username and password, and then create their own child websites to distribute credit to Thai online gamblers³¹. Daily numbers games, including stock lottery, ping pong lottery and Yee Kee, also run every day outside the official system²⁹.

The only legal online gambling is the government's own digital lottery through the Paotang app, described above. Our page on online gambling in Thailand covers the offshore landscape in detail.

Money and payments

At offshore online casinos, Thai players can usually deposit and withdraw in their native baht⁶, and sites targeting Asian markets offer payment methods such as Help2Pay, Bitcoin, Wealth Pay and ViPAY, plus crypto wallets⁶.

On tax, the rules differ sharply by product:

• Government lottery winnings are fully exempt from income tax under the Revenue Code, though stamp duty of 0.5 percent applies as the law sets out³². When claiming, the stamp duty of 1 baht per 200 baht of prize money is deducted at the counter¹⁷.
• Charity lottery prizes carry a 1 percent withholding tax on income, taken at source and remitted to the Revenue Department².
• Winnings from online casinos, including foreign online casinos, are taxable as assessable income under Section 40 (8) of the Revenue Code³².

Our pages on gambling payments in Thailand and tax on gambling winnings in Thailand explain each of these in full.

Who can play

The short answer is that the rules are the same whether you are a Thai citizen, a foreign resident or a visitor: the government lottery and horse racing are legal, and almost everything else is not. Lottery buyers must be at least 20 years old⁸, a limit set to keep young people away from gambling. Under the coming casino framework, the legal casino gambling age is 18⁶.

Visiting and living there

If you are visiting Thailand, the honest picture is this: you can buy a lottery ticket for 80 baht, watch the draw on the 1st or 16th, and spend an afternoon at the races, but there is no legal casino to visit and no licensed sportsbook. The gambling laws apply to foreigners as well as Thais, and the authorities have been known to jail foreigners to await deportation, with fines and deportation a common response²⁵. People caught gambling illegally face a fine and jail time of up to a year¹¹.

The entertainment complex plan will change this if it arrives on schedule in 2029, with free admission planned for foreign visitors who present a passport⁵. Until then, our page on gambling in Thailand as a visitor covers what a tourist can actually do, and gambling trips abroad from Thailand looks at the nearby destinations Thais and residents travel to for legal casino play, such as Cambodia, Macau and the Philippines.

Getting help

If gambling is causing you or someone close to you anxiety, free and confidential support exists in Thailand. The Government Lottery Office lists a gambling consultation helpline at 0-2528-9999, press 9, for people who feel anxiety from gambling and their family members³³. The Social Help Center hotline 1300 offers 24/7, free and confidential support and information³⁴, and international helpline services also cover Thailand for free, confidential support³⁴.

Our page on gambling help in Thailand lists all the contact points and what each one offers.