Democrat-sponsored debate focuses on legalising football betting in Thailand

Football betting happens everywhere around the globe, so it should be made transparent to make it easier to control, forum moderator Watanya Bunnag said at the beginning of the “Listen, Think, Act” forum yesterday evening, which was broadcast live on the Democrat Party’s Facebook page.

She pointed out that it has been legal in England since 1960. In Thailand it is estimated that football betting was worth 180 billion baht in 2021 – equivalent to 1.12% of the country’s GDP, she added.

Watanya chairs the Democrat Party’s Bangkok Innovations committee. She is also the wife of Nation Group CEO Shine Bunnag.

At Tuesday’s forum she was joined by Assoc Prof Nualnoi Treera, director of the Center for Gambling Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Economics, Nuttakorn Vititanon, lecturer of Chiang Mai University’s Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Thanis Piriyaphokanon, managing director of Promes Co Ltd, and a football guru who goes by the name “Bell Field Edge”.

Chulalongkorn’s Nualnoi said the reason some countries have not legalised gambling is that it is not a conventional good or service. Moreover, the activity has a wide impact, from the individual gambler to society as a whole. Legalising gambling requires comprehensive rules to control it, she said.

Both Nualnoi and Watanya used England as an example. Watanya noted that football betting has been legal there since the enactment of the country’s football gambling law in 1960. The law was updated in 2005 to include measures to prevent gambling adverts from reaching youths and to require youths to receive education about gambling, she added.

Nualnoi said England did more than enact a law to legalise gambling: it also reformed its police force. Police reforms are necessary to efficiently crack down on illegal gambling, she said. If Thailand can reform its police force the way England did, then football betting can be legalised here, she added.

If a law is passed allowing football betting without police reform, Thailand will have both legal and illegal gambling, Nualnoi said, adding that this could cause an increase in violence and crime.

“If we legalise gambling without solving the current problems, we will face both legal and underground gambling. The legal ones will not be able to compete against the illegal ones because the legal ones will have to pay taxes, while the illegal ones pay only bribes [to police],” Nualnoi explained.

Nuttakorn said countries that legalised gambling did so because they wanted new sources of income. He said such countries cracked down on illegal gambling so that they would not compete against the sources of income of the state.

Nuttakorn said Thailand needed to reform its gambling law first because the existing law was outdated.

He said the new law must categorise gambling into types based on the level of their social impact. For example, he said, if the government considered that online gambling caused the greatest social impact, the law must be enforced against it strictly, while the government might be lenient on traditional games, such as betting on cockfighting.

“We have had 20 constitutions, but we have had only two pieces of gambling law since the change of the ruling system. So, I think this gambling law is very outdated and it’s about time to overhaul it,” Nuttakorn said.

He said the countries that legalised gambling saw that the state could protect the interest of players instead of letting them gamble on illegal websites. The government could also control access to gambling by age and regulate bookmakers, he said.

If Thailand wants to legalise gambling, a draft law must first be approved in a public referendum to win legitimacy.

Thanis told the forum that about 180 billion baht circulated in football gambling alone a year, while the government’s lottery tickets generated revenue of only 130 billion baht a year. The amount rises to 740 billion a year after combining all types of illegal gambling in Thailand, Thanis added, noting that this total comes close to annual revenues from the tourism industry, which totaled 800 billion baht in 2020.

Tourism is a high-cost activity, but gambling requires little cost so it could be a positive source of revenue for the country.

He said Thailand could build a platform for online gambling that can block access by children and youths by using blockchain. For example, the platform could alert parents with an SMS if their children attempt to use it.

The football guru, “Bell Field Edge”, said gambling on football matches was actually like buying stocks because betters would have to study football teams to attain the knowledge necessary to pick winners.

If football gambling is legalised, an effective system to prevent access by children and youths must be put in place.

Watanya concluded the forum by saying that revenue from football gambling would be significant but there must be a system in place to find a balance between increasing state revenues and minimising social impacts.