There is an interesting story to the Cambodia casinos that sit just across the border from nearby Thailand, where gambling hall gambling is not legal. Eight gambling halls are situated in a relatively small space in the municipality of Poipet in Cambodia. This collection of Cambodia casinos is in an excellent location, a three to 4 hour trip from Bangkok and Macao, the 2 biggest wagering centers in Asia. Cambodia gambling halls do a huge business with Thai blue-collar workers and travelers from Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, with only very few Westerners. The phenomenal income acquired from the gambling halls ranges from $7.5 million to over twelve and a half million dollars, and there are a number of limitations requirements for gambling hall ownership. Ownership is required to be largely Thai; still, financing sources are ambiguous. The borders are ceremoniously open from 09:00 to 5:00 p.m., and although visas are allegedly required to pass, there are means around this, as is true of most border crossings.
The original Cambodia gambling halls premiered in Phnom Penh in the mid nineties, but were forced to close in the late nineties, leaving only 1 gambling hall in the capital, the Naga Resort. The Naga, a docked ship gambling hall, contains 150 one armed bandits and sixty table games. The Naga gambling hall is open all hours with forty two tables of mini-punto banco, four tables of blackjack, ten of roulette, 2 of Caribbean Stud Poker, and 1 each of Pai-Gow and Tai-Sai.
The first gambling den in Poipet, the Holiday Palace, opened in the late nineties and the Golden Crown before long opened. There are 150 slot machines and five tables at the Golden Crown and one hundred and four slots and 68 gaming tables at the Holiday Palace. The latest Holiday Palace Casino and Resort features three hundred slots and seventy table games and the Princess Hotel and Casino, also in Poipet, has 166 slots and ninety six table games, including 87 baccarat (the most dominant game), Fan Tan, and Pai Gow. Also, there is the Casino Tropicana, with 135 slots and 66 of the familiar gaming tables, as well as one table of Casino Stud Poker. Another one of the eight gambling halls in Poipet, again in a hotel, is the Princess Casino with 166 slot machines and ninety seven games. The Star Vegas Casino is part of an all-inclusive resort and hotel building that highlights many conveniences in addition to the gambling hall, which houses ten thousand square feet of one hundred and thirty one armed bandits and eighty eight table games.