There is an interesting background to the Cambodia casinos that reside just across the border from nearby Thailand, in which gambling den gaming is not allowed. Eight casinos are based in a relatively tiny space in the city of Poipet in Cambodia. This band of Cambodia casinos is in a prime area, a 3 to 4 hour travel from Bangkok and Macao, the 2 largest betting centers in Asia. Cambodia gambling halls do a huge business with Thai blue-collar workers and visitors from Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, with just a few Westerners. The phenomenal capital acquired from the casinos ranges from 7.5 million dollars to over twelve and a half million dollars, and there are a number of restrictions requirements for casino ownership. Ownership is required to be mostly Thai; although, funding sources are vague. The borders are ceremoniously open from 09:00 to 17:00, and despite the fact visas are supposedly necessary to pass, there are ways around this, as is real of many borders.
The original Cambodia gambling halls premiered in Phnom Penh in 1994, but were required to close in the late nineties, leaving only one casino in the capital, the Naga Resort. The Naga, an anchored boat casino, features 150 slot machine games and 60 table games. The Naga casino never closes with forty two tables of mini-punto banco, 4 tables of blackjack, 10 of roulette, 2 of Caribbean Stud Poker, and 1 each of Pai-Gow and Tai-Sai.
The first casino in Poipet, the Holiday Palace, premiered in 1999 and the Golden Crown soon followed. A total of one hundred and fifty one armed bandits and 5 table games at the Golden Crown and 104 slots and sixty eight tables at the Holiday Palace. The newer Holiday Palace Casino and Resort features three hundred slot machines and 70 gaming tables and the Princess Hotel and Casino, also in Poipet, has 166 one armed bandits and 96 table games, including 87 punto banco (the most popular game), Fan Tan, and Pai Gow. Also, there is the Casino Tropicana, with 135 slots and 66 of the normal table games, as well as one table of Casino Stud Poker. An additional of the 8 casinos in Poipet, also a part of a motel, is the Princess Casino with 166 slot machines and ninety seven table games. The Star Vegas Casino is part of a comprehensive resort and hotel compound that contains a number of luxuries aside from the casino, which houses 10,000 square feet of one hundred and thirty slot machines and eighty eight table games.
