Thai PM: Legalise gambling to tackle existing illegal gambling
From the little insight provided in the Op it's obvious to note that the sudden change of mind by the government in legalizing gambling in the country isn't due to how people still gamble despite it been proscribed as illegal activity by the government but as a result of the money the government could be deriving from the gambling industry under a legal stand.
The gambling industry is one of the major multi-billion industries right now in the world which in no distant time it will be majoring in trillions due to the increasing number of gamblers each passing year and any government that choose to keep off from acting as a regulatory agency will not only be losing in it's position as a regulator but in the money that would have accrued as taxes to the government.
It's a wise policy move by the Prime Minister and this will ultimately add a boost to the country's treasury which will utterly be channel to affect positively some infrastructure in the country.