There is an appealing story to the Cambodia casinos that lie just across the border from next door Thailand, where gambling hall gaming is illegal. Eight gambling halls are established in a generally tiny location in the city of Poipet in Cambodia. This band of Cambodia gambling dens is in a prime destination, a 3 to four hour trip from Bangkok and Macao, the two largest wagering locations in Asia. Cambodia gambling dens do a thriving business with Thai laborers and guests from Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, with only very couple of Westerners. The phenomenal income gained from the casinos ranges from 7.5 million dollars to over 12.5 million, and there are a few controls constraints for casino ownership. Ownership is assumed to be mostly Thai; still, investment sources are ambiguous. The borders are formally open from 9:00 a.m. to 17:00, and though visas are supposedly needed to cross, there are methods and means around this, as is true of most borders.
The initial Cambodia gambling halls opened in Phnom Penh in 1994, but were forced to close in the late nineties, leaving just a single gambling den in the capital, the Naga Resort. The Naga, a docked barge casino, contains 150 slot machine games and 60 table games. The Naga casino is open 24 hours with 42 tables of mini-baccarat banque, 4 tables of blackjack, ten of roulette, 2 of Caribbean Stud Poker, and a single table each of Pai-Gow and Tai-Sai.
The original casino in Poipet, the Holiday Palace, opened in the late nineties and the Golden Crown quickly followed. There are 150 slot machines and five table games at the Golden Crown and 104 slot machines and 68 gaming tables at the Holiday Palace. The newest Holiday Palace Casino and Resort highlights three hundred slot machines and 70 table games and the Princess Hotel and Casino, also in Poipet, has 166 slots and 96 table games, including eighty seven 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 a single table of Casino Stud Poker. One more of the eight casinos in Poipet, again a part of a motel, is the Princess Casino with one hundred and sixty six slot machines and 97 casino games. The Star Vegas Casino is is located in an international vacation and hotel building that contains numerous comforts on top of the casino, which houses ten thousand sq.ft. of 130 slot machine games and eighty eight gaming tables.