The security officers first demanded my phone, and then, after my refusal to give it to them they went through the photo album and deleted the images they decided were 'too sensitive.'Įxhausted, about $60 USD poorer, and without any of my photos, I decided it was time to call it quits. The casino, apparently, wasn't impressed with my cleverness. The security had already confiscated my Canon DSLR at the entrance, but I soldiered-on taking photos with my trusty Huawei phone instead.

But on the other side of the border, in Cambodia, that figure dropped to little more than $1,200 USD per-person. Thailand's GDP reached nearly $6,000 USD per-capita last year. It's a grimy gambling mecca situated in one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. Poipet is one of the strangest towns I've ever seen. Those who can afford it make the trip across the border to Cambodia, where gambling is a legal industry that brought in as much as $2 billion USD in 2015-only slightly less than the country's entire Gross Domestic Product in 1995. Many Thais ignore the law and bet on everything from cock fights to buffalo races, but those who are caught engaging in even the smallest bit of illegal betting face hefty fines and even jail time. Gambling, outside the state-run lottery and horse racing, is illegal in Thailand. The town was full of Chinese tourists and Thai day-trippers in town to try their luck. Most of them are situated along gambling strips in towns like Poipet, Bavet, and O Smach-all places within eyeshot of wealthier countries like Thailand and Vietnam where casino gambling is illegal but an appetite for the risk-and-reward of table games and slots remains. This run-down, crime-filled town was home to a dozen of Cambodia's 75 or so casinos.

Poipet is one of Cambodia's casino bordertowns.

Thailand cambodia border casino