57% of Thais gamble, study finds

Lottery news stories blamed for increase

A study by the Centre for Gambling Studies (CGS) has found that more than 700,000 people who gambled this year are first-time gamblers, with the youngest first-time gambler being only seven years old.

CGS director, Nualnoi Trirat, said that the centre has been conducting a study on the gambling habits of Thais across the country since 2017.

According to Ms Nualnoi, the study found that as of this month, 30.42 million Thais, equivalent to 57% of the country’s population, engaged in some sort of gambling. The figure, she said, represents an increase of 1.4 million gamblers from when the study began in 2017.

“Our study found that more than 700,000 people who gambled this year are first-time gamblers, the youngest whom was only seven years old,” she said.

The study found that among the 30.42 million gamblers surveyed this year, 733,000 or about 20% were between the ages of 15-18; 3.05 million, or 46% were aged between 19-25; 3.3 million gamblers, or 42% were 60 or older.

The most popular form of gambling among Thais is the government lottery, followed by underground lotteries and football betting.

“In terms of money generated by gambling activities, football betting came out top with about 160 billion baht circulating each year, followed by the underground lottery with 153 billion baht, and the government lottery with 150 billion baht,” according to Ms Nualnoi.

According to Ms Nualnoi, news coverage about government lottery winners is encouraging more and more Thais to gamble.

“The Government Lottery Office [GLO] prints more than 100 million lottery tickets for each draw, which far outstrips the country’s total population of about 68 million people,” she said.

“This promotes gambling, and encourages people to buy more tickets.”

She urged the GLO to take a serious look at the long-term potential harm of gambling on society.

Supreeda Adulyanont, the manager of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, said the foundation launched a working unit in 2010 to spearhead a public awareness campaign about the dangers of gambling and push for tighter regulations on gambling.

“We believe access to gambling must be tightened and we urge the government to create policies which do not promote such activities in society,” Dr Supreeda said.

Dr Supreeda also said that Thailand should set a panel tasked with preventing occasional gamblers from becoming full-blown addicts.