The pace of climate change is causing problems for both bettors and bookies in Cambodia’s rain gambling market.

Outside of the local lottery, Cambodia doesn’t allow its citizens to gamble, a needlessly prohibitionist stance that predictably leads Khmer gamblers to seek unapproved methods of scratching their itch, including the decades-old practice of betting on when rain might fall.

For the uninitiated, rain bettors pick one of three daily time slots – 6am to noon, noon to 2pm, or 2pm to 6am – during which they believe rain will fall. Since Cambodia’s traditional ‘wet’ season – May through October – makes afternoon rain all too predictable, the morning slot is where gamblers stand to earn some real cash if they wager correctly.

A new report by Southeast Asia Globe quotes one rain betting ‘broker’ saying he had “thousands” of customers, who wager anywhere from $15 to $1,000 on the likelihood of the clouds literally and figuratively making it rain.