The Thai economy will benefit from a 14% increase in money circulation, amounting to approximately Bt87.6 billion, during the UEFA Euro 2024 championship starting this weekend.
Of this sum, Bt67.04 billion is expected to come from illicit gambling, with the remainder stemming from legitimate expenditure, said Thanawat Pholvichai, director of the Center for Economic and Business Forecasting at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.
The center based its forecast on a national survey, Thanawat said in a press briefing today..
The center also found that 70% of the respondents expect to spend more than they did during the last UEFA championship in 2020.
The respondents plan to spend Bt3,700 per person on food and beverages while watching the matches at home, Bt4,497 on dining out and Bt2,475 on purchasing souvenirs of their favourite football team.
Thanawat noted that 35.6% of the sample admitted that they would use Bt2,000 to gamble on each match, totalling Bt23,574 per head for the entire tournament.
England, Germany and France are the three favourite teams among Thais, while the teams which are favoured to win the championship, according to respondents, are the United Kingdom (26.3%), France (22.3%) and Spain (15.7%).
Germany will host the tournament, which will take place from June 14 to July 14. 24 teams will take part.
