Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the legality of Poker. As we have discussed in other videos, the current acting Prime Minister who also is the Interior Minister has signed an order which basically takes Poker from being considered a highly restricted gambling endeavour to being considered something akin to a sport. Now that did not legalize it completely as I will get into here in a moment, but it does open the gates for poker to be played and more widely exhibited if you will; they can have events and things. 

My hope Is something akin to poker rooms will spring up and it is treated much akin to billiards here in Thailand or pool. Pool tables, poker tables will be similar. Places will have poker tables, places will have pool tables, it will be somewhat similar, again remains to be seen. But the reason for the video is it is not legal yet, okay? On a street level, on a fundamental level, it's not legal yet. There was an exhibition that the timing of which was quite curious. The opposition here in Parliament has brought that up and said yeah that was weird. This thing had been touted and planned although Poker wasn't legal and then some, depending on what the reports you read, some 36 to 48 hours prior to it being put on, this order was signed, and it was just magically allowed for that event. Pretty strange timing I have got to admit; the opposition has a real point there. That said, that was a one-off and poker is not just being rolled out yet. Again, there is an association that is apparently being formed and there is a lot of regulatory nuance that we are going to have to go through and sort of evolution that we are going to have to go through before it is legal at any kind of notional street level. 

So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: But I don't give a hoot: August 2025. Quoting directly: "Some Thai bars with Poker sounding names, such as Four Aces or Full House, are being asked if they are centres for the newly legalized sport." Well again it is not legalized in the full sense of the term, it is my understanding. Everything I have read in the research is they have deregulated, they have sort of pulled it down off of calling it a hard gambling endeavour to being called a sport but where this can be put on and how it is exhibited remains to be seen and there are regulations that have yet to come out to that effect. "Any comment would be superfluous." So finishing that quote.

So the thing to take away from this video and understand is it is not legal yet at a street level; don't presume it is. Again, they are reclassifying it. I think lessons have been learned from the past where they don't just want it to sort of be out on the street and just immediately everybody is doing it and there is nothing they can do about it. They want regulation, probably because they want tax money, I would imagine. So again I think caution, although we can be cautiously optimistic, but I think caution is highly warranted presently because it is not a foregone conclusion that we are going to see Poker just rolled out across the board here in the Kingdom of Thailand.