A case study in sin: The rise and fall of Sihanoukville

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Few establishments could be more depressing than a Sihanoukville casino. Stony faces. Empty rooms. Pleading eyes from hostesses and table dealers desperate to hit their quotas.

Not too long ago, I wondered why Chinese whales (high-rolling punters) would fly all the way to Australia to gamble when cities like this, on the southern beaches of Cambodia, were so close to home and designed especially for them.

The brightest part of Sihanoukville at night.Credit: Zach Hope

Having visited a few casinos in Sihanoukville, it is now a little clearer. The venues we chose, at least, are not places of revelry. They are bright and shiny, stale and despairing. As quiet as libraries.

It is difficult to keep tabs on casino numbers here because they are regularly closing and opening – or operating illegally – but it may be around 80 now. The gamblers we see inside are often alone, fixated on the table, looking up occasionally to register the peculiar sight of a Westerner wandering around awkwardly.

When it was a place of sleepy beaches and backpackers, Westerners loved Sihanoukville. Not so much these days. Tour company Intrepid Travel cut the city from its itinerary in 2020 because it had been “swamped by foreign investment and tourism, mauled by construction”.

Most buildings are Chinese owned. All have Chinese signage. While there are many Cambodian faces, it is difficult to find sit-down restaurants specialising in Khmer food. High rents nudge up the prices of meals, squeezing out the locals, and the Chinese gamblers prefer their own fare.

We arrive on a Saturday and see hundreds of Cambodian weekend-trippers from Phnom Penh eating packed lunches on the beach.

Sihanoukville’s transformation by Chinese money and gambling has been well documented. But the heady days of 24/7 construction and rivers of gold are done. Hundreds of abandoned, grimy construction sites pock the city like giant tombstones. The casinos we visit are next to empty. One room had more than a dozen staff and not a single gambler. It was a Saturday night.

The Cambodian government’s Sihanoukville narrative is about post-pandemic recovery. It has launched tax incentives to revive the dead buildings and is working with the Chinese on a masterplan.

Land has also been cleared for a $US16 billion ($23.4 million) satellite city called Bay of Lights, which is being developed by the conglomerate of Chinese-born tycoon Chen Zhi, now a naturalised Cambodian.

Nearby, the Ream Naval Base is being upgraded with more Chinese money. This has sent the US and its allies into a dither about whether the People’s Liberation Army Navy is going to use it as its own – a Chinese outpost in one of the most hotly contested regions in the world. The Cambodian government, not particularly trusted in the West, says this is nonsense.

Chinese ships at Ream Naval Base, as seen from a boat off Sihanoukville.Credit: Zach Hope

Since December, China has had two corvette warships – soon to be handed over to Cambodia – parked there. You don’t need satellite images to know this. See them on the road out from Sihanoukville or from a hired boat ($US60) – even better, while eating breakfast in a hammock at one of the restaurants next door to the base. They are no secret.

Australia knows well that where cash and casinos go, so go the crooks. Sihanoukville, though, insulated by corruption or indifference from Cambodian officials, has for the best part of a decade been a special case study in sin.

We met a Cambodian victim of human traffickers who lured him to the city with the promise of legitimate work and accommodation.

The Vietnamese-speaking man, who asked not to be identified, was to lead a team of Vietnamese workers at an online casino. As it turned out, he says, the building was one of Sihanoukville’s notorious scam compounds, and the games were rigged.

Wealthy Vietnamese men would win good money at first and form online relationships with the captives. Then, the gamblers would lose the lot.

After a few days, our victim tried to leave but was blocked. “They said I had to stay for six months. I said no. Then I started to cry out to the Vietnamese. I said, ‘We are sold! We are cheated!’”

He started a fight and was thrown into a makeshift cell, throwing punches at whomever tried to come inside and zap him with a cattle prod. In the violence, the goons forgot to take his phone, so he called a friend, who called the police.

This man was enslaved in a Sihanoukville scam compound.Credit: Zach Hope

The man was freed when the attending officers discovered he was a Cambodian citizen. “They didn’t care about the Vietnamese,” he says. “Even when I told them there were 30 or 40 people in my room, they didn’t care.”

That was in 2019. He never found out what happened to the others.

Cambodia has since formally banned online gambling and raided some scam compounds. A “fake crackdown”, a Cambodia-based activist told me. But something is happening here.

While the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the city, every trader we speak to says business is down on last year. One Chinese businessman, there for the gambling, talks of “too many regulations” but does not elaborate.

One of hundreds of abandoned construction sites in Sihanoukville.Credit: Zach Hope

A restaurant worker says her old place used to have a contract delivering meals to a building full of “online” workers. The client was most likely operating an illegal online casino, scam compound, or both. In any case, the contract ended because the client moved operations to the Thai border.

We hear this more than once. Media attention has made it harder to run illegal operations. At the borders, criminals can flit to the other side if things get hot.

As one sin city wanes, others grow.

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