Sisters held in bust of B700m gambling site

Police question two women said to be operators of a major gambling website with 700 million baht in circulation during a raid in Lampang on Thursday. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)
Police question two women said to be operators of a major gambling website with 700 million baht in circulation during a raid in Lampang on Thursday. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)

Two sisters in Lampang face charges of running a gambling website that had about 700 million baht in circulation.

The women were arrested along with four staff members in raids on three houses in the northern province on Thursday.

Sisters Punika Arayasuwan, 41, and Pratthana Arayasuwan, 39, were arrested along with the four staff members — three men and one woman — who were website administrators and marketing staff.

Police had found that the website HPPOIPET had posted advertisements to persuade people to bet online. They then learned that the operation was run from three houses in Lampang.

When police arrived at one of the houses, they found the two sisters and staff chatting with gambling customers online. The location had a grocery shop in the front, while a bedroom inside had been fitted out with IT gear to run the website.

Ms Punika and Ms Pratthana told officers that they used to work for a casino in the Cambodian border town of Poipet, which attracts thousands of Thais.

When they returned to Thailand, their brother-in-law contacted a Cambodian operator to buy a franchise to run the HPPOIPET website in Thailand.

The two women said they had been running the business in Lampang for 7 years and received commissions of 10-20% of the amounts bet. The website had more than 5,000 customers, both Thais and Cambodians, and more than 700 million baht in circulation, according to police.

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Vocabulary

  • administrator: someone whose job is to manage a business, organisation, or institution - ผู้บริหาร, ผู้บริหารกิจการ
  • attract: to cause someone to be interested in something - ดึงดูดความสนใจ
  • bet: to risk money on a race or an event by trying to predict the result - พนัน
  • bust (noun): an arrest; an unexpected visit made by the police in order to arrest people for doing something illegal - การจับกุม
  • circulation: the passing of money from one person to another - การหมุนเวียนของเงินสด, กระแสเงิน
  • commission: an amount of money that is paid to somebody for selling goods and which increases with the amount of goods that are sold - ค่านายหน้า, ค่าคอมมิชชั่น
  • franchise: a formal agreement for someone to sell a company’s products or services in a particular place - การขายระบบแฟรนไชนส์ คือมีสาขาของร้านค้า เช่น 7-eleven
  • gambling: the activity of betting money, for example in a game or on a horse race - การพนัน
  • persuade: to make someone agree to do something by giving them reasons why they should - โน้มน้าวใจ เกลี้ยกล่อม
  • raid (noun): using force or legal authority to enter a place suddenly in order to arrest people or search for something such as illegal weapons or drugs - การเข้าตรวจค้น
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