There is a captivating background to the Cambodia gambling halls that lie just across the dividing line from next door Thailand, where casino gaming is against the law. Eight gambling dens are anchored in a generally tiny location in the metropolis of Poipet in Cambodia. This band of Cambodia gambling halls is in an excellent location, a three to 4 hour drive from Bangkok and Macao, the two biggest betting centers in Asia. Cambodia gambling dens do a huge business with Thai laborers and guests from Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, with only very few Westerners. The astonishing income accrued from the gambling dens ranges from $7.5 million to over 12.5 million, and there are a couple of restrictions constraints for casino ownership. Ownership is required to be largely Thai; however, funding sources are vague. The borders are officially open from 09:00 to 1700, and even though visas are supposedly required to pass, there are means around this, as is real of most border crossings.
The original Cambodia gambling halls opened in Phnom Penh in the mid nineties, but were forced to close in the late nineties, leaving only a single gambling hall in the capital, the Naga Resort. The Naga, an anchored boat gambling hall, highlights 150 slot machine games and 60 table games. The Naga river boat is open all hours with forty two tables of mini-baccarat chemin de fer, 4 tables of chemin de fer, 10 of roulette, 2 of Caribbean Stud Poker, and 1 each of Pai-Gow and Tai-Sai.
The initial gambling den in Poipet, the Holiday Palace, premiered in 1999 and the Golden Crown before long followed. There are 150 one armed bandits and five table games at the Golden Crown and 104 one armed bandits and 68 gaming tables at the Holiday Palace. The newest Holiday Palace Casino and Resort highlights three hundred one armed bandits and seventy gaming tables and the Princess Hotel and Casino, also in Poipet, has one hundred and sixty six slot machine games and ninety six gaming tables, including 87 baccarat banque (the most popular game), Fan Tan, and Pai Gow. Also, there is the Casino Tropicana, with 135 one armed bandits and sixty six of the normal table games, as well as 1 table of Casino Stud Poker. One more of the eight casinos in Poipet, again a part of a hotel, is the Princess Casino with 166 one armed bandits and 97 table games. The Star Vegas Casino is part of an all-inclusive vacation and hotel building that features a number of luxuries on top of the gambling hall, which contains ten thousand square feet of 130 slot machine games and 88 gaming tables.