Thai police rounded up 94 gamblers, mostly Indians, at an illegal casino set up in the conference hall of a hotel in the eastern province of Chon Buri on Sunday night.
Police said that the 84 Indian nationals had flown to Thailand last Thursday for the sole purpose of gambling, with some of them claiming that they were told by the organisers of the trip that gambling is legal in Thailand.
More than 100 officers from Bang Lamung police station laid siege to the hotel before they entered the conference hall,which had been transformed into a casino, complete with all the required gambling equipment such as Baccarat tables.
In the conference hall, the police found 84 Indians, six Thais and four Myanmar migrant workers.
They said that more than 500 million rupees, or about 200 million baht, was gambled each day and the activities were livestreamed to India.
One Indian gambler told the police that each player must open a credit account to buy chips, with some having credit lines to the tune of six million baht.
A Thai organizer of the gambling trip, “Sitranan”, reportedly admitted that she rented the hotel’s conference hall at a rate of 120,000 baht a day, as she insisted that the hotel has nothing to do with the gambling activities.
She also said that she took care of the food and lodging for the Indian gamblers and that the gambling equipment wasimported from India before the COVID-19 pandemic and moved into the hotel only a few days ago.
She also claimed that she had paid about 2.4 million baht in bribes to two men, who claimed that they could convince the local police not to touch the casino.
Each Indian gambler is charged 50,000 baht for the gambling package tour, said Sitranan, adding that there are two groups of Indian tourists, one only focused on gambling and the other on sight-seeing.
Police said that all the gamblers and the dealers will face charges for illegal gambling.
