Deputy PM wants football gambling legalised
published : 26 Sep 2023 at 12:55
writer: Gary Boyle
ORIGINAL SOURCE/WRITER: Aekarach Sattaburuth
More forms of gambling should be legalised, for example on football, to raise tax revenue, says Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thepsutin.
Mr Somsak said that legalising gambling was a different way of looking at the issue after the arrests of online gambling suspects and searches of houses on Monday.
Cyber crime police raided several places in Bangkok on Monday, including the houses of deputy national police chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn, as part of a crackdown on a large online gambling network.
"Gambling on fighting cocks and bulls is legal but other kinds of gambling, such as on football, are not," Mr Somsak said.
He had ordered officials to review the possibility and the matter would be proposed to the cabinet later.
"It would be beneficial because online gambling involves huge amounts of money. If it were spent to help people with disabilities, elderly people and underprivileged children, it would go to good use," the deputy prime minister said.
Vocabulary
- beneficial: helpful or good - มีประโยชน์
- cabinet: the group of government ministers who make and approve government policy - คณะรัฐมนตรี
- cock: a male fowl or chicken; a rooster -
- crackdown: strong action that someone in authority takes to stop a particular activity - การปราบ
- disability: an illness, injury or condition that makes it difficult for someone to do the things that other people do - ความพิการ
- gambling: the activity of betting money, for example in a game or on a horse race - การพนัน
- legalise: to make something be according to the law - ทำให้มีอำนาจตามกฎหมาย ทำให้ถูกต้องตามกฎหมาย
- possibility (noun): the fact that something might exist or happen, but is not certain to - โอกาส, ความเป็นไปได้
- suspect: a person who is thought to have committed a crime - ผู้ต้องสงสัย
- tax (noun): money that you have to pay to the government so that it can pay for public services - ภาษี
- underprivileged: not having as many advantages or opportunities as most other people - ด้อยโอกาส