I would have no idea as to whether this has been set up from inside or outside Thailand but regardless it is thoughtless as there is a chance it could cause problems/harm for many people.
The Thai governments official position is
one of being against gambling, period. It does not matter what happens in an ‘underground’ sense,
casinos are illegal here, in fact you cannot buy a deck of cards here (and can be fined if found in possession of more than 120 cards).
Regarding
online poker, in practice it is a very gray area. Some sites
are unavailable already (
party poker for example) and everyone knows
to keep a low profile concerning online activity. Quite frequently someone blithely posts something about grinding from the kingdom and many cringe, because the government could stop any and all such activity on a whim.
A Thai group appears to have set this up so it could appear as if they are thumbing their noses at the Thai Government. If the government came across this there might potentially be repercussions for many who grind here…Thais know the laws of the land, so this is an incredibly thoughtless idea.
For what it is worth I have raised the matter with
pokerstars who, to be honest, should knew already this might be a politically insensitive thing to be doing.
