Sirichoke questions Thai crackdown as 29 of 30 betting sites stay accessible

Sirichoke Sopha, a former MP with the Democrat Party, has cast doubt on how Thailand enforces its online gambling rules. He reported that he tested 30 betting websites and found 29 still reachable. The Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry had announced blocking measures and said it restricted 945,075 gambling-related links.

Writing on social media, the former MP argued that the large tally of blocked addresses had not stopped people from reaching the leading platforms. According to him, 5 well-known gambling platforms could still be opened at their original addresses, and together they drew 1.43 million visits from Thailand every month.

He asked what share of the ministry's blocked links were primary gambling sites as opposed to secondary addresses or backup pages. In his view, the authorities seemed to be taking down minor links while the core platforms stayed open. Blocking a given number of addresses, he argued, did not account for the continued availability of the major platforms. The figures come from the sites Sirichoke said he examined, and the report notes they are not an independent check of every link in the ministry's total.

The former MP pressed DES Minister Chaichanok Chidchob for an explanation of why the leading gambling platforms could still be used. He tied that demand to the minister's earlier stance against a proposed entertainment complex that would have included a casino, contending that online gambling represented the bigger danger.

Beyond website access, Sirichoke urged the government to look into the money moving through online gambling, including transfers that may run through cryptocurrency. Investigators, he said, must establish who financed the protection schemes and who profited from them. The report makes clear that his mention of protection arrangements was a request for an investigation rather than a confirmed finding that any such arrangements existed.

Sirichoke brought up Shuffle.com as well, noting that the platform had blocked access from Thailand after he had earlier made allegations tying the operation to an MP. In his view, the restriction might have been meant to head off closer scrutiny. The report describes that motive as his own interpretation, and it says the order of events does not show why the platform chose to restrict access.