People’s MPs urge stricter gambling laws

People's MPs urge government to review and drive the Entertainment Complex policy, tighten gambling laws, and address impacts first. They wonder whether the amendment to the qualifications criteria for policy committee members will allow former Deputy Finance Ministers, who were charged with stock manipulation, to become board members. They also question whether the amendment to the list of requirements attached to the draft bill will benefit anyone. Non Paisal Limcharoenkit, MP for Nonthaburi, Prachachon Party, made a statement regarding the case in which Ms. Paethongtarn Shinawatra, Prime Minister, stated in the government's policy on generating new income by introducing the non-tax economy and underground economy into the tax system at 50 percent of GDP and talked about driving the Entertainment Complex policy to solve the problem of illegal gambling and for the benefit of the country's economy, asking all parties to help keep an eye on this project, which referred to a figure of several hundred billion baht. If compared to Macau, we would have to steal all of Macau's customer base, while neighboring countries Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines can only get 1/3 of Macau's. Therefore, we do not see the source of the real income figure, which if calculated should not exceed 10 billion. Meanwhile, the government has not yet prepared to handle the impact that will follow, both in terms of solving illegal gambling, online gambling, and local gambling. Currently, the penalty for gambling is quite low, with players being fined only 2,000 baht and organizers being fined 20,000-200,000 baht with a maximum imprisonment of 2 years. The first thing to consider is to create a strong legal system before there are casinos by improving the current law that punishes with relatively mild penalties, making offenders not afraid of the law. And the important thing is to make the police into police officers who are responsible for arresting and suppressing gambling. But today, how can we trust them? Because there was just ne ws that 2 high-ranking police officers were involved in a gambling website and there was also news that there was a network of police in the North who were part of the call center gang. Can we really expect these people to take care of and prevent crimes related to casinos? If we can't solve this basic problem, it means that Entertainment Complexes will be a new problem that will be brought into Thailand and may expand to other gray businesses. And in the Integrated Entertainment Venue Act, the rental fee for Thais is specified at 5,000 baht. Who will use the service? It will increase the demand for playing casinos even more if Entertainment Complexes are created and people will definitely go to use illegal casinos. The People's Party MP said that when considering the draft of the Integrated Entertainment Venues Act, it was found that one clause stated that online gambling could not be allowed. However, he wanted to ask whether there are currently tools to access online gambling like internationally. At the same time, legalizing local gambling and local gambling were not specified. When examining the details of this draft act in terms of the composition of the Integrated Entertainment Venues Policy Committee and the contents were almost no different from the current cabinet and bureaucracy, he thought that it would definitely not be effective. Since this cabinet has duties and responsibilities, where is the time to take care of and effectively set policies? And even more so with the permanent secretaries of various ministries sitting there, it is like this committee is giving the Integrated Entertainment Venues Policy Committee unlimited power, which is very dangerous. Any matter that can be reduced, cancelled, revoked or ignored the most will be attached with the words "as announced by the policy committee". Yesterday, the Deputy Minister of Finance, who is responsible for this matter, reported that the Ministry of Finance has no duty to decide how much is appropriate to do, which provinces to do it, and who wi ll do it. Therefore, he wanted everyone to go back and look at the structure of the policy committee, which the Minister of Finance is also a member of. Mr. Non also asked to keep an eye on the qualifications of the policy committee that will be appointed, as some of the prohibited characteristics have disappeared by being crossed out at the Entertainment Complex special committee level, namely, they must never have been removed from office by the Senate, must not be prohibited from holding a political position, and must never have left the position of a director or executive of a public limited company due to a reason that shows a lack of suitability to be trusted to manage a business with the public as shareholders under the Securities Exchange Act. During the previous cabinet, there was a deputy minister of finance who had just received the position and appointed Mr. "Th..." to the position of assistant secretary to the deputy minister of finance, but someone found that this person was guilty of stock man ipulation and was ordered to be fined and banned from trading in the Stock Exchange. Is this why some of the qualifications have disappeared? Or is it to pave the way for people who know how to escape to be recruited to be the Entertainment Complex committee in the future? Therefore, it is believed that something is definitely not normal. It was also noted that the attached list of the committee submitted to the Cabinet has been reduced from 12 items to only 10 items. Everything seems to be out of order. The first thing that is missing is the matter of large convention centers or large exhibition venues being removed from the attached list. However, when selling dreams, they raised the flag that it is a huge core business and it is included in the 7th policy of this Cabinet. It is not known whether this will affect the shopping malls of any tycoons in Thailand. Another part is health tourism, which is a complete health center, which has been removed. In addition, the matter of hotel standard measurement crit eria has been removed, from the original requirement that it must be a 5-star or 6-star hotel. "See, we're starting to smell something strange. Cutting this and that out, squeezing it down to small pieces like this and that. Or what they said they were doing to benefit the Thai economy, I think they were doing it for the big bosses, the brokers, like the leader of the Prachachon Party gave you all the nicknames," said Mr. Non. For the permission to operate entertainment venues, it is stipulated that entertainment venues must be located in areas specified in the Royal Decree only as proposed by the Cabinet of Ministers and must operate entertainment businesses in the attached list of at least 4 types. Then the casino will be within the definition of a complete entertainment venue that the government has permitted. Changing the definition to be ambiguous will allow any capitalist to do so. Therefore, I would like to ask whether you want to build a luxurious casino like Singapore or renovate it like neighborin g countries. I think that such a determination will cause small casinos to spread throughout the country instead of having an Entertainment Complex. Therefore, I would like you to review the various processes to be complete before moving forward, rather than stubbornly. Because in the end, Entertainment Complete will become an entertainment venue that deceives the public. Source: Thai News Agency

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