Rasmei Kampuchea reporter beaten up

Tuesday 02 March 2010
By P.B.
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Translated from French by Alain de Veng
Click here to read the article in French

While he was taking pictures at a market, the reporter was assaulted by several individuals.

Vong Thou, a reporter for the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper in Banteay Meanchey, was beaten up at the beginning of the week by owners of gambling parlors while he was trying to take pictures of Yuki, a gambling that is very popular in Cambodia, especially at the Kbal Spean market in Poipet.

The reporter was severely injured on his head and his face. The cops had already arrested two of the assailants and Vong Thou brought up a lawsuit to the provincial court, accusing his assailants of murder attempt.

In a communiqué issued on 02 March, the Club of Cambodian Journalists [CCJ] considers the violence as a serious attack on the freedom of the press: “We call on the justice [system] and the police to arrest the authors of the attack, and to sentence them according to the law,” the CCJ indicated.

Hun Xen banned all gambling dens, but yet VN claims somebody is running a cockfighting ring in Takeo, can you guess who he is?

Chrey Thom Cockpit in Cambodia’s Kandal Province
A cockfight at the Golden Stone Casino in Cambodia

The siren call of Cambodia’s cockpits

Saturday, June 13, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Eternal optimists from the Mekong Delta are spellbound by the cash-draining cockfights across the border.

Rice farmer Hai from Kien Giang Province declared he would quit gambling for good after selling some land to finance his expeditions to the notorious cockfights just across the Cambodian border.

Hai’s vow might have sounded more genuine had he not been standing by the cockpits of the Golden Stone Casino in Cambodia’s Ta Keo Province having just lost more money.

He is just one of many Vietnamese people from the Mekong Delta who burn through fat wads of cash at the Cambodian cockfighting arenas.

Cockfighting is a tradition in Vietnam but it is illegal to bet on the bloodsport, so the desperadoes patronize places like the Golden Stone, which is less than five kilometers from Chau Doc in An Giang Province and takes any bet no matter how big or small.

Thanh Nien visited the Golden Stone last week to find it crowded with hundreds of gamblers, and it was a weekday. On any one day there can be up to 70 cockfights.

The unwritten law

A single bet can be anywhere from VND5 million (US$281) to VND50 million, depending on the pit.

Nothing’s written down as there are plenty of beefy minders around to make sure everyone ponies up after a fight is over.

A cockfight ends when one of the two cocks dies or collapses and is unable to continue. If both fall down, the winner is the one that gets back up first.

And if they both stay down, the referee makes the final decision and announces the winner.

It’s not uncommon for cock owners to collude in fight fixing by quietly injuring one of the two birds beforehand. At the Golden Stone, the fine for this offence is VND20 million.

Born losers

A retailer of plant chemicals in Long Xuyen Town said he had quit the high rollers’ pit at the Golden Stone after losing VND50 million, and tried a cheaper pit.

When he lost again, he quarreled with the bookie and claimed he’d never placed the bet.

He soon changed his mind when a heavy-set thug appeared on the scene to “arbitrate.”

Rooster owners can also bet, but they lose double if their bird goes down.

A farmer from Kien Giang said he had taken along three fighting cocks and lost all his money betting on them.

“It was my last time. I will quit gambling,” he too declared after fessing up that his family had intended to use the money to build a house for rent in Binh Duong Province.

A retired bookie who had plied his trade at several cockpits in Cambodia said he used to make big money from the betting and the commissions from successful gamblers he had advised.

Yet he eventually returned to Vietnam almost penniless after failing to collect the debts owed by regular casino patrons, many of them formerly wealthy people from his neck of the woods.

Nowadays he makes some pocket money by advising cock buyers looking for the best birds, but otherwise is no longer involved in the sport.

When asked if anyone got rich from cockfighting, he answered, “Only the owners of the cockpits.”

Reported by Tien Trinh

Thai arrested after casino hostage crisis

Tuesday, 03 June 2008
Written by Kay Kimsong
The Phnom Penh Post

A Thai national is in police custody after taking a Cambodian casino cashier hostage and threatening to kill her if she did not hand over her cash in a Battambang province gambling den, authorities said.

The 37 year-old attacker, who police named as Aranhvike Champakhorn, was seized by police on May 30 after a Thai official was able to persuade him to release the 21 year-old victim, who received minor cut wounds from a knife to her neck, Deputy District Military Police Chief Nhem Savy told the Post.

"He was threatening to kill her with a fruit knife but her neck was only scratched," said Savy, who added that police and gendarmerie had surrounded the Fantasy casino, located near the Thai border, during the hostage crisis.

During the stand-off, Aranhvike first demanded money from the cashier and then asked that his father be summoned from Bangkok to intervene, district police chief Chhun Kim Hong said.

After his arrest, a crowd of motorcycle taxi drivers and onlookers had to be turned back from the police station where Aranhvike was detained, Kim Hong said.

"Many motodops and young men were angry with this guy and we had to protect him," he said.

Thai punters make up the bulk of the customers streaming into more than a dozen casinos dotting Cambodia's border with Thailand.