The exposure of the Phuket Island underground casino case in 2025 has starkly revealed the grey industry chain of Thai Chinese hidden beneath the sunny beaches to the public. This shockwave has not only shaken the superficial prosperity of Thailand's tourist destinations but also rocked the foundation of many Chinese people's "gold rush dreams."
I. The Tropical Crevice of Grey Production Growth
Thailand, with its lenient visa policies, developed tourism, and frequent regulatory loopholes, has long attracted a plethora of cross-border grey market activities. Online gambling, telecom fraud, cryptocurrency laundering, illegal purchasing, and pornographic live streaming... A complex underground system has already formed a closed loop within the Chinese community.
The so-called "Chess and Card Entertainment Centers" are actually underground casinos, transferring gambling funds through cryptocurrencies or underground banks; telecom fraud parks take advantage of Thailand's lax internet regulation and low costs, targeting mainland China users. Illegal currency exchange, fake documentation, and other "support services" have also been commercialized, even developing a specialized "underground legal circle" for the Chinese.
II. From Gold Diggers to Prisoners: A Grey Production Pyramid
The structure of the workforce is clear, and traps are everywhere:
Capitalist class: Mostly Chinese capital, using Thai "white gloves" to register companies as a cover, luxurious yet extremely cautious.
Middle management: Mainly operated by locals, responsible for attracting customers and managing relationships, often intertwined with local forces.
Lower-level labor: Mostly young Chinese attracted by "high salary temptations," with passports confiscated and wages reduced, facing threats of violence at the slightest non-compliance.
As a young Chinese man deceived into working at a casino said, "I thought it was a customer service job with a monthly income of 30,000, but I ended up making over a hundred scam calls a day, unable to escape."
III. Parasitic Survival: The Cross-Border Order Under Grey Production Logic
These grey production organizations have established a "parasitic" survival strategy in Thailand:
Dependent on the Chinese community: Using restaurants, KTVs, and other legal venues to cover their activities;
Anti-tracking technology: Extensively using encrypted communication, virtual payments, disguised access control, etc.;
Gambling the legal grey areas: Well aware of Thailand's judicial leniency and easy bail conditions, gambling offenses are at most sentenced to one year, far less costly than in China.
IV. The Community's Rift: From Mutual Aid to Mutual Harm
The existence of grey production has torn apart the Thai Chinese community:
Legal businessmen are implicated: A Chinese restaurant owner lamented, "Just having a Chinese sign makes people think it's a money laundering spot, directly losing 30% of business."
Lower-level labor harming each other: The so-called "Chinese mutual aid organizations" actually charge high intermediary fees, even illegally reselling information;
Family collapse: Many telecom fraud workers in the parks suffer mental breakdowns and self-harm, and their families, fearing involvement, dare not call the police, having to spend a lot of money on "transnational rescues," ultimately losing both money and people.
V. The Storm Approaches: The Prologue to the End of the Grey Production Era?
Since 2024, Thai-Chinese joint efforts to combat grey production have been frequent:
Thailand has strengthened cryptocurrency regulation and advanced anti-money laundering law revisions;
China has sent commissioners to assist in investigations, repeatedly jointly destroying scam parks;
Social media anti-scam organizations continue to expose, rescuing more victims.
The former "shortcut to wealth" has now become synonymous with illegality and victimization. As policies tighten and social attention heats up, the breeding ground for the Chinese grey industry is gradually cooling down.
Among the ruins of the abandoned casinos on Phuket's beaches, those who were swept up by rapid capital and their fates, are perhaps the truest reality of this era that should be seen.
