Under the plan, DE will set up working groups to collect and analyze online data, after which that data will be shared with the platforms to help them find and remove illegal gambling ads and accounts, and passed to the Royal Thai Police for further action. The ministry will also open channels for the public to report gambling activity, work with search engines to limit access to illegal sites, and team up with other ministries to teach young people about the risks.
The ministry said in a statement:
“Solving online gambling problems, including various illegal URLs, cannot be carried out by any single agency. It requires cooperation from all sectors, especially the people, who are an important force in reporting information and clues.”
The illegal gambling market in Thailand is estimated at THB1.1 trillion a year, and between October 2025 and September 2026, courts ordered 835,207 gambling-related URLs blocked, and another 109,868 were blocked through cooperation with digital platforms.
Back in June 2026, Thailand’s Consumer Council had already sued Meta over scam ads on Facebook, including gambling ads, after receiving over 3,800 complaints linked to the platform.
