Casino Guides by Country

Malaysia has no licensing regime for online gambling, and the Common Gaming Houses Act 1953 — written decades before the internet — was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in 2023 to cover online gambling, in a case whose affirmed convictions involved online-gambling offences; public reporting and legal commentary differ on whether an ordinary private player's conviction under section 6(1) was among those upheld, or whether the conviction actually affirmed was operator-scale, for managing an online gambling business under section 4B(a). What is not in dispute is the statute itself: section 6(1) exists and, on its face, criminalises individual online play, so a genuine legal risk sits on the books for any player.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Singapore's Gambling Control Act 2022 makes it a specific, named criminal offence for an individual to gamble with an unlawful gambling service provider: Section 20(3) sets a penalty of a fine up to S$10,000, up to six months' imprisonment, or both, applied directly to the player rather than only the operator. The narrow legal exceptions are Singapore Pools' own licensed remote channel — its website and app have offered online 4D, TOTO and sports betting as an exempt operator since 2016 — plus the two integrated-resort casinos, which are licensed for in-person play under separate legislation; no offshore online casino is ever a lawful option for a Singapore-based player.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Thailand's Gambling Act B.E. 2478 (1935) prohibits nearly all forms of gambling, online or offline, and applies to the player as well as the operator — taking part in most listed games without authorisation can carry fines and jail time, with only the state lottery and horse-race betting at licensed Bangkok tracks exempt.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Vietnam prohibits online casino gambling outright: Decree 147/2024/ND-CP explicitly bars casino-style and card-based games from any licensed online product, and Penal Code Articles 321–322 make unauthorised gambling a criminal offence for participants as well as organisers, with sentences that scale up when the internet or computer networks are used to commit the offence. The country does run narrow, closely controlled pilot programmes letting qualifying Vietnamese nationals gamble in person at a handful of physical casinos (Phu Quoc, Ho Tram, and eventually Van Don) — but these pilots are strictly land-based, capped by minimum-income eligibility rules, and carry no online component.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Indonesia bans all gambling, online or offline, under the Criminal Code (Articles 303/303bis), the 1974 Gambling Control Law, and the amended ITE Law, which allows sentences of up to 10 years' imprisonment for facilitating or distributing online gambling content — among the strictest regimes covered on this site. Enforcement has intensified through 2026: the Ministry of Communications and Digital reports blocking 3.7 million gambling-related websites and suspending tens of thousands of linked bank accounts since 2024, alongside over a thousand arrests, coordinated by a cross-ministerial task force under Law No.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Australia's Interactive Gambling Act 2001 makes it a criminal offence for a gambling company to offer online casino games or 'pokies' to anyone in Australia, whether or not the operator holds a licence elsewhere, with civil penalties running up to A$1.8 million per day for a corporation (and up to A$360,000 per day for an individual involved in the offence). The Act does not criminalise the player: no Australian resident has ever been charged for signing up with an offshore casino, and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) instead blocks illegal operators' websites at the ISP level (over 1,700 sites blocked to date).

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Under the Gambling Act 2003, the law regulates the operator, not the player: offering remote interactive gambling from within New Zealand without authorisation is illegal, but no provision criminalises a resident who signs up with an overseas-licensed casino, and the Department of Internal Affairs has said it does not pursue individual players. That is changing — the Online Casino Gambling Act 2026 received Royal Assent in April 2026 and commenced on 1 May 2026, creating New Zealand's first licensed online casino market with up to 15 licences to be auctioned and a market launch targeted for December 2026, with only licensed operators permitted from mid-2027.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

Canada regulates online gambling provincially rather than nationally: Ontario opened a competitive iGaming market under AGCO/iGaming Ontario in April 2022 and now lists dozens of licensed operators, Alberta launched its own regulated market in July 2026, and British Columbia's independent gambling regulator followed the same year. Elsewhere most provinces still rely on a single government-run lottery-corporation site (or no online casino product at all), so unlicensed offshore 'grey market' operators — estimated to carry over half of Canada's total online gambling volume — continue to serve a large share of Canadian players even though using them isn't itself illegal for the player.

Legal position last verified 2026-07-25

Read the full guide →

How RTP and volatility really work, what bonus terms cost you in practice, and the honest maths behind real-money pokies — the companion guide to our Australia hub.

Read the full guide →