Former Democrat MP Sirichok Sopha is demanding a deeper investigation into the blocking of the crypto gambling website Shuffle.com and the role played in the business by the husband of Bhumjaithai MP Suchada Zhang Thaensap.
He is questioning who ordered Shuffle.com to stop accepting players from Thailand, and says the 1% shareholding held by Ms Suchada’s husband, Australian entrepreneur Zhang Taiyang, may not fully reflect the extent of his influence over the business.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Mr Sirichok also called for scrutiny of more than 600 million baht in dividends and the financial benefits received by those connected to the gambling operation.
“Who ordered Shuffle.com to block Thai players? Was it the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, or someone behind the gambling operation?” the outspoken politician asked.
Mr Sirichok compared two screenshots: one showing Shuffle.com announcing that it would no longer accept players from Thailand for legal reasons, and another illustrating the type of page displayed when the DES ministry blocks illegal websites.
He said the screenshots suggested that the website itself had restricted access for Thai players, rather than being blocked by the ministry.
He questioned why the platform, which had previously accepted Thai players, changed its policy while facing intense scrutiny in Thailand over its finances and reported links to Mr Zhang.
Screenshots posted by former Democrat MP Sirichok Sopha show Shuffle.com announcing that it could not accept players from Thailand, and the type of page displayed when the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society blocks an illegal website.
“Who informed the gambling operators overseas about what was happening in Thailand? Who proposed excluding Thai players, and who had the authority to give the order?” he asked.
He compared the case to the investigation into the “Wairun Sang Tua” online gambling network, which resulted in criminal proceedings and asset seizures. In such cases, he said, ownership alone was not the determining factor.
“Authorities must look at who is behind the operation, who manages it, who gives the orders and who benefits from it,” said the former Democrat MP.
In the case of Shuffle.com, he said Ms Suchada has already acknowledged that her husband held a 1% stake in a business associated with the site.
Preference shares
However, he argued that the nature of Mr Zhang’s shareholding was more significant than its size. According to Mr Sirichok, the shares are preference shares that grant him extensive access to the company’s financial information.
Broad access to financial information is not commonly associated with preference shares, which generally provide priority rights to dividends or company assets over ordinary shares, he said.
Mr Sirichok questioned why Mr Zhang had been granted such privileges and whether they indicated a more significant role in the business than his 1% stake suggested.
He urged Thai authorities to investigate whether Mr Zhang had any decision-making authority at Shuffle.com.
Changes to a website’s access policies should leave technical and decision-making trails that could be examined, he said.
By tracing the process from the person who proposed the change and the one who approved it to the technical personnel who implemented it, investigators could establish who exercised control over the operation and whether Mr Zhang was involved in the decision, he said.
Mr Sirichok also pointed to the substantial financial interests involved, including a dividend payout of more than 600 million baht and a reported increase of more than 130% in the price of SHFL, the cryptocurrency associated with Shuffle.com.
He called for investigators to determine how much Mr Zhang benefited from his preference shares or SHFL tokens, and whether the proceeds were connected to assets declared by his wife to the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), or to political party donations.
“This is not merely a question of who holds a 1% stake,” Mr Sirichok said. “It concerns control of an online gambling operation, enormous financial benefits and money trails that could lead to assets and political donations.
“The question today is not just who owns shares in Shuffle.com, but who gives the orders, who receives the money and where it goes,” he said.
Donations to Bhumjaithai
Mr Sirichok had earlier urged the Election Commission to investigate donations to the governing Bhumjaithai Party from Ms Suchada, given that her husband is under scrutiny over his business interests and crypto investments.
The couple have been in the headlines since People’s Party MP Rangsiman Rome raised allegations in Parliament concerning Mr Zhang earlier this month.
Scrutiny first arose over Ms Suchada’s asset disclosure to the NACC, showing 1.85 billion baht in her husband’s name.
The largest asset declared was a 1.4-billion-baht loan made in 2021 to the now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC).
Mr Zhang was a co-founder of Ren Protocol (originally Republic Protocol), a decentralised platform that lets users move digital assets across different blockchains.
He sold the business in 2021 to Alameda Research, a company led by the crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, who linked the platform to his FTX crypto ecosystem.
Shuffle.com launched in February 2023 as a crypto-only casino and sports betting site. With monthly wagers exceeding $2 billion, the Curacao-headquartered company is one of the top three crypto-only gaming sites in the world.
Its co-founder and CEO, Noah Dummett, previously worked as a trader at Alameda Research, one of the businesses linked to FTX.
FTX was the world’s second-largest crypto exchange before it collapsed in late 2022, which ultimately led to Bankman-Fried being jailed for fraud.