Nguyen Van Thinh got creative in order to avoid the bookmakers he owed money to – instead of moving away or going on the run, he stayed in his house. Well, not in his house so much as underneath it. He dug a small cave underneath his house in Hanoi and proceeded to live there for two months to dodge his creditors, and he was brought food and water by his wife.

In Vietnam, gambling is largely illegal, with state lotteries being the exception in the Communist state. Of course the citizens don’t take this law too seriously, and illegal sports betting is rife, as well as an illegal betting on the lottery, called Lo De, where gamblers bet on the last two numbers that will come up in the daily draw. Which doesn’t really seem that exciting, but I guess it floats their boats.

Lo De is what sunk Thinh into debt in the first place, as the Vietnamese banks don’t give out much credit anymore to curb the country’s spiraling inflation, he had to turn to loan sharks to pay off his debts. While there are many problem gamblers in Vietnam, there is no program such as Gambler’s Anonymous to help them and gambling is dealt with only as a criminal issue. And perhaps an architectural one.

 

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