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Academics Oppose the Legalizing of Online Gambling in Thailand

Academics Oppose the Legalizing of Online Gambling in Thailand

Legalizing internet gambling in Thailand to increase government revenue has been proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Somsak Thepsutin, but critics fear it will be difficult to police and will bring a slew of societal problems.

Mr Somsak, who oversees the Justice Ministry, made the remarks in response to reports that eight police officers were involved in online gambling activities, prompting cybercrime police to raid 30 locations across six provinces on September 25.

They included five houses occupied by deputy national police chief Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn.

Those allegedly participating in the “Betflix” online gambling network were the targeted. In Thailand, most types of gambling are outlawed.

He believes that more kinds of gambling, such as sports, should be legalised. Currently, he claims that gambling taxes assist neither the state nor the general population.

State revenue would grow if these were taxed like other gambling activities licenced by the Interior Ministry, such as bull and cock fighting.

He stated that he will consider the matter with the Strategic Transformation Office and, if necessary, make a recommendation to cabinet.

He claims that online gambling involves large sums of money. According to the deputy prime minister, the government may collect taxes and utilise the proceeds to assist individuals with disabilities, the elderly, and the impoverished.

online gambling Thailand

Protecting Minors from Online Gambling

According to Visanu Vongsinsirikul, an economics professor, the internet brings together all forms of betting, and consumers can wager on applications, websites, smart phones, or laptops.

“The issue is how to protect children and adolescents from online gambling.” Even adults are susceptible to becoming addicted to it.

“Online gambling is easy to access, and people can gamble anywhere, at any time,” Mr Visanu explained.

“The issue is distinct from that of legalising casinos. Because the online platform brings together all types of gambling and people can always bet, it is difficult to manage or limit the number of players.

“It will not only lead to people becoming more addicted to gambling, but it is also associated with other issues such as money laundering and credit card forgery,” he warned.

“Online gambling should be the last to become legal.” ‘You can even gamble in your bedroom, and who is going to arrest you?’ he asked.

Mr Visanu stated that if the government wishes to legalise internet gambling in order to generate revenue, it can allow enterprises operating online gambling websites to be legally created in the country.

“For example, the majority of online baccarat games come from Poi Pet in Cambodia. If a bookmaker is allowed to operate lawfully in Thailand, the income will still be held by the primary corporation in Cambodia,” he explained.

He also stated that just a few nations allow online gambling. It is only permissible in a few states in the United States, and the only legal type of online gambling in Singapore is online football betting.

“Legalising online gambling should be carefully considered.” It should be the last option because it is difficult to control and set criteria for, according to Mr Visanu.

Gambling in Thailand

Thai’s will gamble on anything

According to Nonarit Bisonyabut, a senior research fellow at the Thailand Development Research Institute, gaming is a source of various difficulties. “Legalizing gambling is not a solution, and social issues will not go away.”

“If gambling is legalised, it should be done on a small scale, such as establishing a casino in each region with a set of criteria for screening people, and it should be done to promote tourism,” he said.

According to Mr. Nonarit, legalised gambling in certain nations is still on a small scale. Money staked on football gambling, for example, is limited to no more than US$1,000 (37,000 baht) every match, he added.

“However, this is not applicable in Thailand because many Thais are willing to gamble on anything.” ”A comprehensive effort against large-scale gambling is required,” he said.

Legalising gambling, according to Thanakorn Khomkris, director of the Stop Gambling Network, is easier said than done.

According to him, the government should concentrate severe enforcement of the law against significant illicit gaming companies and change laws to strengthen gambling control.

He stated that various institutions, including the Royal Thai Police, the Interior Ministry, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission, and the Anti-Money Laundering Office, are involved in dealing with gaming.

“However, each of them only touches on the issue, and no agency is leading the charge or taking a prominent role in addressing the problem,” Mr Thanakorn explained.

police corruption gambling thailand

Social problems, crime, and corruption

He agreed that legalising internet gambling would cause more harm than good, claiming that people would have easy access to it and gamble all the time, and that it would be more difficult to police than onsite gambling.

While legalized gambling may increase government revenue, it would also cause more social problems, crime, and corruption, according to him.

“It is not worth the risk to legalise gambling.” Thailand may lose Chinese tourists as the Chinese government discourages its nationals from visiting countries where gambling is legal,” Mr Thanakorn added.

He stated that the Chinese government opposes gambling because it is a source of corruption, and that it intends to transform Macau, a world-renowned gambling centre, into a metropolis of innovation and innovative entrepreneurship.

“Creative business is becoming a global trend, while legalising gambling in Thailand runs counter to that trend,” Mr Thanakorn said.

According to a source at the Central Investigation Bureau, online gambling operators have paid kickbacks to some police officers, leading the practise to expand.

According to the source, some police officers embrace the concept of legalising online gambling and allowing legal gambling dens so that the government can collect taxes to bolster state coffers rather than money changing hands under the table.

According to the source, even if online gambling is legalised, other kinds of illegal gambling still exist, and the government must maintain its efforts to combat them.

The Bhumjaithai Party has previously asked the government to expedite its legal casino project in order to address the issue of gambling dens, illegal online gambling, and fraud.

casino's on Thailand

Legalize Land Based Casino’s in Thailand

Saritpong Kiewkhong, a Bhumjaithai MP, has suggested that the government explore legalising casinos in order to combat corruption and generate revenue from legal gaming.

He claimed that illicit casino operators have paid payments to many police officers and government officials who take advantage of the law’s flaws. Legalizing casinos means that both online and offline casinos will be subject to government scrutiny.

Due to its profitable potential, a special House committee released its assessment on the viability of developing entertainment facilities, including legal casinos, in January.

The report estimates that such a complex would cost US$8 billion, or 280 billion baht. The construction and employment of 30,000 workers would take five years.

According to the research, one might be developed in Bangkok, the Eastern Economic Corridor, or any of the 22 major tourist destinations.

It could also be near an international airport or in border provinces with permanent immigration checks, like as Phuket, Phangnga, Krabi, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, and Phayao, among others.

It proposed allowing eight sorts of gambling activities, including online casinos, betting on stock exchange indexes and foreign exchange rates, and betting on sporting events.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Could Last-Minute Surprises Derail Kamala Harris’ Campaign? “Nostradamus” Explains the US Poll.

Scientists Awarded MicroRNA The Nobel Prize in Medicine.

US Inflation will Comfort a Fed Focused on Labor Markets.

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