Casinos in Cambodia‘s border towns are on tenterhooks over Vietnam’s plan to relax restrictions on local residents entering Vietnamese casinos.

Earlier this week, Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance submitted a draft decree that could end the longstanding prohibition on locals in casinos, an inevitability that Cambodian border casinos have nonetheless anticipated with much the same enthusiasm as an adult male converting to Judaism.

The nearly one dozen casinos in the Cambodian town of Bavet, which lies just across the border from Vietnam, are particularly unnerved by this event. Lim Kim Seng, chairman of the Lucky89 Group, told the Phnom Penh Post that his two border casinos “will face a lot of challenges to remain profitable” if Vietnamese punters can gamble in domestic casinos.

Not everyone is ready to fold their tents. Johnny Ferrari, whose Start Live Casino has helped companies like Lucky89 launch online live dealer casino operations, says the online future will remain bright, but only if casinos are willing to think big.