No doubt you have heard of dairy farms, vegetable farms and the like, but what about “Gambling Farms”? The term Gambling Farms (so-called because they were run by representatives of syndicates termed farmers) seems to have originated from the Federated Malay States (FMS), for although gambling was prohibited in other British territories, in the FMS, “farmers” were […]

In the great days of Perak mining when Kinta Valley was the world’s biggest producer of tin, gambling was one of the main evils (alongside opium, women, alchohol and the Secret Societies) that faced the hardworking mining and railway coolies, as well as the rich Towkays who often lost their fortunes. While we are not absolutely sure […]