Michael Batson

In a land dominated by agriculture where the monsoon is both too hot and too short, water comes to dominate living for most Cambodians caught between floods and drought. In northwestern Cambodia this feature of society manifests itself in the form of rain gambling. Although gambling on rainfall is a casual pastime in other parts of Cambodia (and indeed in Asia), in Battambang this has taken on extreme forms. Battambang (pronounced Batdambong), is a riverside town and home to some of the best-preserved French colonial architecture in Cambodia. Situated on the meandering Sangker River, the town is officially home to a quarter of a million souls and the country’s second city, but it has more of a sleepy provincial town feel. Here, Battambang boasts the largest and most sophisticated rain betting market in the country, complete with bookies, near-professional gamblers, and participants by the thousands. As the clouds change, networks of devoted sky-watchers call contacts from as far as Pailin, a remote frontier town on the Thai border and previously one of the last strongholds of the Khmer Rouge. The rain-betting day is divided into three parts: breakfast until noon, noon to 2pm, and 2pm to 6pm. A bet, starting at $2, yields a pay-out if it rains during the chosen time period. Betting on precipitation during the normally dry mornings is riskier, but offers a massive payoff. But it's relatively safe to assume that it will rain before 6pm at the