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Recently, news spread through the Thai community that a 12 year old boy committed suicide by throwing himself off of a balcony on the sixth floor of the building where he lived.  The horrifying action has led to an aggressive ban on online casinos in the country.  The connection may not be immediately clear, but the story itself is inherently bizarre.

The father of the child forbade his son from playing any more web based games.  Distraught, the child decided it was worth dying over.  In response to this, the Thai Criminal Court has taken this case as a sign of the dangers of exposing minors to not only online casinos but addictive computer games as well.  The Thai Criminal Court has issued an order to the Information and Communications Technology Ministry to block access to 72 websites that offer a range of entertainment from free play computer games to online casinos.

Internet service providers in Thailand are also expected to block these gaming sites as well.  Unlike the case in Minnesota where the state government is requesting that Internet service providers block over 200 domain names belonging to online casinos and Internet gambling sites, Internet service providers are facing serious consequences if they do not abide by the court order.  According to Deputy Chief Suchart Wong-anandchai, Internet service providers that fail to follow the court order will face fines, be stripped of their operating license, and perhaps even prison time.

While experts like Bundit Sornpaisarn, the director of the Rajanagarindra Child and Adolescent Mental Health Institute that aggressive children that develop poor gaming habits are more likely to attempt suicide, he believes that proper parental intervention is better solution that banning online casinos and Internet games.

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