Archive for March 29th, 2016

Cambodia Gambling Halls

[ English ]

There is an interesting story to the Cambodia gambling dens that sit just across the border from nearby Thailand, in which casino betting is illegal. Eight gambling halls are based in a relatively tiny space in the city of Poipet in Cambodia. This group of Cambodia casinos is in an excellent location, a three to four hour drive from Bangkok and Macao, the 2 largest gaming centers in Asia. Cambodia gambling halls do a huge business with Thai blue-collar workers and guests from Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, with only very few Westerners. The phenomenal capital acquired from the gambling dens ranges from $7.5 million to more than 12.5 million dollars, and there are a couple of restrictions constraints for gambling den ownership. Ownership is assumed to be largely Thai; however, financing sources are ambiguous. The borders are officially open from 0900 to 5:00 p.m., and despite the fact visas are supposedly required to cross, there are ways around this, as is real of many borders.

The original Cambodia gambling halls premiered in Phnom Penh in the mid nineties, but were forced to close in the late nineties, leaving just one casino in the capital, the Naga Resort. The Naga, an anchored barge casino, features 150 one armed bandits and sixty table games. The Naga casino is open 24 hours with forty two tables of mini-punto banco, 4 tables of blackjack, 10 of roulette, 2 of Caribbean Stud Poker, and a single table each of Pai-Gow and Tai-Sai.

The 1st casino in Poipet, the Holiday Palace, opened in 1999 and the Golden Crown quickly opened. A total of 150 one armed bandits and five table games at the Golden Crown and one hundred and four slot machine games and sixty eight table games at the Holiday Palace. The newest Holiday Palace Casino and Resort features three hundred slot machines and seventy tables and the Princess Hotel and Casino, also in Poipet, has 166 one armed bandits and 96 gaming tables, including 87 punto banco (the most beloved game), Fan Tan, and Pai Gow. Additionally, there is the Casino Tropicana, with one hundred and thirty five slot machines and 66 of the normal table games, as well as 1 table of Casino Stud Poker. Another one of the eight gambling halls in Poipet, again a part of a hotel, is the Princess Casino with 166 slot machine games and 97 table games. The Star Vegas Casino is is located in an all-inclusive vacation and hotel building that highlights a number of luxuries in addition to the casino, which has ten thousand square feet of one hundred and thirty slot machines and eighty eight tables.