Members of a bridge club in Thailand arrested?

By Submitted Message
Posted in Reader question
Tags: ,
April 13, 2019

Dear readers,

Last night I saw a program called De Ambassade on Veronica. There, all members of a bridge club in Thailand were arrested and put in jail for a night because they were in possession of more than 120 playing cards or allegedly played for money.

Anyone familiar with this?

Regards,

Ruud

6 thoughts on “Members of a bridge club in Thailand arrested?”

  1. RonnyLatYa says up

    Yes, I remember very well. There was a lot of fuss about that at the time.

    Just Google “bridge players arrested in Pattaya” and you will read enough

    https://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/work/852180/police-arrest-32-senior-citizens-for-playing-bridge

  2. erik says up

    Again? They should know better by now, those players.

    Or does this mean: https://www.thailandblog.nl/nieuws-uit-thailand/arrestatie-bridge-spelers-thailand-maakt-zich-belachelijk/ and that was three years ago.

  3. Gringo says up

    Seems old news to me, see
    https://www.thailandblog.nl/nieuws-uit-thailand/arrestatie-bridge-spelers-thailand-maakt-zich-belachelijk

    • willem says up

      Yup, old news

  4. ruud says up

    It has been in the news extensively.

    The police assumed that there was gambling.
    That turned out not to be true, they were (mostly?) old people from a bridge party, and then - probably to avoid losing face - they found another old law, which says that it is not allowed to exceed - 120? I thought I had fewer – playing cards in the house.
    Nice detail is that a bridge competition was held in Bangkok at that time.

    Something to question is of course, that everyone has been fined for that too many cards.
    In my opinion, that should only have been the owner or manager of the property.

    I mean, you're going to be eating in a restaurant, and the police are raiding because the owner has drugs.
    Will you also send all dinner guests to prison for a few years?

  5. Maryse says up

    Dear Ruud,

    It's already been resolved. It took a while, but now we happily continue playing bridge in Pattaya. Thanks to the intervention of the Thai bridge association Bangkok, the police now know that bridge players are not gamblers.
    We did have to buy officially stamped playing cards (that is, tax was paid on them) and apply for a special playing permit. This permit is prominently displayed on the reception table at every bridge drive.
    These rules only apply to bridge in public (cafes, hotels, etc…) For bridge at home, friends among themselves, there are no restrictions or obligations regarding cards and permits.
    Maryse
    Member of the Dutch bridge club Pattaya


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