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There is an interesting background to the Cambodia casinos that sit just over the border from neighboring Thailand, where casino gambling is illegal. Eight casinos are situated in a generally small location in the city of Poipet in Cambodia. This collection of Cambodia gambling halls is in a perfect location, a 3 to 4 hour drive from Bangkok and Macao, the 2 most popular gambling centers in Asia. Cambodia casinos do a huge business with Thai laborers and tourists from Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, with only very couple of Westerners. The amazing income gained from the gambling halls ranges from 7.5 million dollars to more than 12.5 million dollars, and there are a couple of controls constraints for gambling hall ownership. Ownership is required to be largely Thai; still, financing sources are vague. The borders are ceremoniously open from 0900 to 5:00 p.m., and even though visas are supposedly needed to cross, there are means around this, as is true of many borders.

The initial Cambodia gambling halls premiered in Phnom Penh in the mid nineties, but were forced to close in the late nineties, leaving just a single gambling den in the capital, the Naga Resort. The Naga, a stationary barge casino, contains 150 slot machine games and sixty gaming tables. The Naga casino never closes with forty two tables of mini-baccarat, 4 tables of vingt-et-un, ten of roulette, 2 of Caribbean Stud Poker, and one each of Pai-Gow and Tai-Sai.

The first gambling hall in Poipet, the Holiday Palace, premiered in 1999 and the Golden Crown quickly opened. A total of one hundred and fifty slot machine games and 5 table games at the Golden Crown and one hundred and four slots and sixty eight tables at the Holiday Palace. The latest Holiday Palace Casino and Resort contains 300 one armed bandits and 70 tables and the Princess Hotel and Casino, also in Poipet, has one hundred and sixty six one armed bandits and ninety six table games, including 87 baccarat (the most dominant game), Fan Tan, and Pai Gow. Also, there is the Casino Tropicana, with one hundred and thirty five slots and 66 of the normal table games, as well as 1 table of Casino Stud Poker. One more of the 8 gambling dens in Poipet, again a part of a motel, is the Princess Casino with one hundred and sixty six slot machines and ninety seven table games. The Star Vegas Casino is part of an international vacation and hotel building that features numerous comforts on top of the casino, which offers ten thousand square feet of one hundred and thirty slots and 88 tables.