From a bitter old expat perspective hopefully not. People do crazy things when backed into a corner and losing everything. Gambling is a good way to create those situations and it happens all the time with girls playing slots on their phones, ruining their lives and then pulling scams to try to dig themselves out of financial pain. The current plan hopes to avoid some of these problems by charging Thai's a 5000b entry fee to enter designated entertainment complexes (casinos). This would likely dissuade some from going in to play. Foreigners would get in for free. For anyone thinking they will open a casino it's probably bad news. This article from the Bangkok post suggests that the current plan is to charge a huge multi million baht registration fee and then a billion (yes billion with a b) annual payment.

There will be monthly meetings held by the government until a deal is worked out. Given the huge amount of money involved it looks likely we'll see a small number of mega casinos dotted about Thailand at some point in the future. The riches needed to operate likely means it will be only the mega wealthy using them. With Thailand being so close to China there are no shortage of millionaire customers which should achieve the result the government is looking for. Another source of income from the license fees and taxes. What will it mean for expats? Probably nothing. I don't think we're the target market.
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