Former MP Questions Digital Ministry's Gambling Site Blocking Efforts Citing High Accessibility Rates

Key summary

Sirichok Sopha, a former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Pheu Thai Party and former Democrat Party MP, posted on Facebook on October 24 questioning the effectiveness of Thailand's Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DE) in blocking online gambling websites. While the ministry reported blocking nearly one million URLs, Sopha stated his own check of 30 sites found 29 still accessible. He listed major platforms including UFABET, 1XBET, bet365, M98, KUBET, MAXBET, Stake.com, SBOBET, W88, and 918KISS as remaining accessible to Thai users. Sopha also alleged receiving information that a political party planned to pay MPs an extra monthly salary of 400,000 baht, totaling approximately 40 million baht per month for 100 MPs. He suggested the ministry coordinate with Cloudflare to use Geolocation Blocking features to restrict access from Thailand, citing Shuffle.com as an example of a site that self-imposed such restrictions.