Interesting game....

I think its human nature that people like to gamble. Over here, legal and illegal gambling are easily found. Cross over to Tachilek Myanmar and you could head to a very grand Casino (heard from wife that its pretty big) just around the corner (Many Thais crossed over to get to high roll in that Casino). Wife was helping her cousin looking for a job and found him one. Bloody hell, as a runner(seller) for a bookie. The game they play is not lottery or 3D(they have it here same as Malaysia). Not sure exactly the name of the game. The Burmese play it too and they called it simply Sam Sip Hok (36). The Thais called it Pat Thong Si.

Basically, the game involves the picture shown on the right (click on it to see a bigger version). You could see a man wearing a costume with lots of animals on it. Total of 36 animals. And then beside the picture is a chart which kinds of say which animal is a partner of the other. Example, 1(monkey) is a partner of 18 (Gold fish). The chart is sometime important and I will explain later.

To play, the bookie or boss will pick a number at his house in a secret room. No one even his own wife knows about it. He will come out of the room and tell a story to his runners, normally about 4 to 6 sentences. This story is actually a clue to what number is going to open today. So the runners get the story and spread it to his audience. Who would place their bets from the runner. The odds is actually 1:30. So if you buy 10baht, you will 300baht. The min bet is 1baht and no limits on the max (heard some hardcore buy few thousand baht per day). So everyday there is 2 bets, one in the day and one at night. First results is revealed in the evening at 4pm, while the second at 10pm.

Wife got lucky a few times and managed win a few hundred. hehehe... So far I asked for the translation for the story and found out that the sentences are not that direct, it could mean more than 10 animals sometimes(which means if you buy all 10, even if you strike, the returns might not be that great). Some are quite obvious until you are scared to make the bet. So its a psychological game from the bookies also. The chart I mentioned before is sometime important and the story might have clues like "friends" "wife" "partner" and etc..

By the way, you can see Chinese characters in the picture as the bookie is a bloody Thai Chinese :P. And a lot of Chinese are playing. And of course, this is illegal in Thailand but seems like the bookie got some real good "connections". Heard that his best friend is the Police Chief of Chiang Rai Province.