Thailand's casino industry should avoid relying on Chinese customers, due to risks from China's anti-gambling policies and regional diplomatic issues, experts warn.
The Thailand casino industry is expecting mainland China customers to be high-value clients, however, based on recent regional experience, Thailand must refrain from building a sector revolving around these consumers. This is mainly due to risk factors such as China's ongoing efforts to stop its residents from going overseas to gamble and the current condition of diplomatic relations between nations within the region.
The potential for Thailand if it legalizes the casino industry was one of the subjects discussed in a panel discussion at the Thai Entertainment Complex Summit organized by Winna Media. As the lead media partner of this Summit, Asia Casino News (ACN) attended this event which took place in Bangkok from December 2-4, 2024.
The panel focused on how the legalized Thai casino industry could affect current Asia-Pacific markets and how it could attract local customers.
Vitaly Umansky, a senior research analyst at Seaport Research Partners, claims that Chinese consumers are "critically important" for "virtually every gaming market across Asia."
Regarding general Chinese travel to Thailand, the publication China Daily stated on October 10 that, with 160,000 travelers, mainland China visitors were the biggest source market for Thailand's tourism industry during China's October Golden Week, which ran from October 1 to October 7.
More than 5.1 million Chinese visitors traveled to Thailand between March 1st, when a reciprocal visa exemption between China and Thailand was put into effect, and September 22nd of this year, the news outlet added.
One concern, Mr. Umansky pointed out, was whether any Chinese casino operators entering the Thai market would be newcomers or if they were pulled from other regional casino markets like Macau, Vietnam, or Cambodia.
The Thai-locals market would also be "critically important," according to Mr. Umansky.
Bloomberg Intelligence's Asia-Pacific gaming and leisure analyst, Angela HanLee, provided additional insight into the Chinese consumer issue.
She said, "The Chinese government knows that Chinese people [like to] gamble, but… probably doesn’t want people to gamble outside China."
"They [the Chinese authorities] still want to keep this gambling money and gambling tax and related expenses in their own country. And, of course, Macau is an offshore city, but still part of China,” she continued.
In reference to the emerging Thai casino market, Ben Lee, managing partner of IGamiX Management and Consulting Ltd, said during the panel discussion: "You don't want to be fully dependent on Chinese business." He blamed the drop in Chinese travel to South Korea at the time on a diplomatic conflict between China and South Korea in 2016 over the latter's use of American-supplied weapons on its own territory.
According to Mr. Lee, South Korea's foreigner-only casinos—only one is accessible to locals—"used to target the Japanese and the Taiwanese, but because the Americans stationed missiles in South Korea, China all of a sudden closed the gates and that market evaporated.”
“Since then, the Korean casinos have had to struggle to get back to the original Japanese and Taiwan customers," he continued.
Mr. Umansky noted that "outside the local market, you can't pin your hopes on any specific jurisdiction" with regard to Thailand's prospective casino business.
“I think China is the one that’s most volatile,” he added.
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