As you said, these kind of traditions where animals are involved in such games are not that easy to eliminate because it's already part of that specific county's tradition, I know for a fact that these people who indulge in such games do know that chickens are living things but despite of that fact, they still chose to raise some of these chickens to prepare them for a fight when they grow older.
Not all chickens are designed for farming or poultry raising. Those fighting chickens do have a breed and can't be compared to the capability of those in the poultry. In other words, these fighting chickens are useless when raised as poultry for food or egg production purposes, and as a result, they are used in cockfighting.
People should just accept that these games will continue to exist especially in those countries that allow the operation of this.
As long as the operations are running legally, that's fine. Hunt down those running illegally as they are not contributing to the revenue of the country.
People see cock fighting is part of their traditions and course, it's part of their daily routine to have a feeding of their animals and one of their leisure time and also part of their gambling habit and entertainment is the cock fight, some of the rural part they don't need some management or rule under the government because some of them is scattered most likely they are just regulated in the urban. I don't have any idea yet if they must need to have a paper to make a casual play of cock fighting.