Cambodian officials said the government was looking to set a tax rate for casino games at between 4 and 5 percent to match regional casinos such as Singapore.
Cambodia's casino business, with its sense of the "Wild West", has grown rapidly since the late 1990s, with 65 licensed casinos and the sector dominated by the Naga World Hotel and Entertainment complex in Phnom Penh.
Ben Reichel, executive director of Donaco International, says across South East Asia there is significant demand underpinning the potential growth in the gaming industry.
"There's a lot of unsatisfied demand in the region as a whole. If you look at the number of tables compared to somewhere like the USA, it's actually a very low number of gaming tables available - which is why there is so much illegal competition going on," Reichel said.
Cambodia has benefited from restrictions or outright bans on legal casinos — such as in Thailand — or where local gamblers are prevented from entry to existing casinos.
Outside Phnom Penh, where Naga World enjoys a monopoly, other key clusters of casinos are in the border town of Poipet, near Thailand, the seaport of Sihanoukville, and to the east along the border with Vietnam.
But a decision by Vietnam's authorities to allow local gamblers to use Vietnam based casinos was seen as a threat to those casinos near Vietnam's border.
Source: GMB / Voa News
