Apparently, the casino industry in Vietnam managed to earn around $61.3 million in 2014 while the casinos in neighboring Cambodia earned over $2 billion.

This Wednesday, the Institute for Regional Sustainable Development (IRSD) released a report which shows that Vietnam’s eight foreigners-only casinos had combined revenue of VND 1.38t last year, of which the government earned a total of VND 339b from taxes.

That same day the central bank chief from Cambodia announced that their country generated annual revenue of around $2 billion. Just like Vietnam, the state of Cambodia does not allow their locals to gamble at their casinos, and Chea Serey who is the director general of the National Bank of Cambodia claims that the income which is generated by casinos from non-residents is worth around 40% of total international travel credits.

This outbound transfer of capital is giving the Vietnamese government the idea of allowing locals to enter the casinos located in their country. They also want to engage in legal sports betting since they think it could also be a very good source of income from taxes. Maybe this reminder of how small the Vietnamese casino industry is compared to the one in Cambodia will spur the leaders of Vietnam to act.