Online Gambling Regulations
Global Regulatory Atlas

Online Gambling Regulations Worldwide

A jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction reference of gambling law: where casino, betting, lottery and poker are regulated, who licenses them, and what the rules say — cited to the primary legislation.

Fiji Tanzania W. Sahara Canada United States Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Papua New Guinea Indonesia Argentina Chile Dem. Rep. Congo Somalia Kenya Sudan Chad Haiti Dominican Rep. Russia Bahamas Falkland Is. Norway Greenland Fr. S. Antarctic Lands Timor-Leste South Africa Lesotho Mexico Uruguay Brazil Bolivia Peru Colombia Panama Costa Rica Nicaragua Honduras El Salvador Guatemala Belize Venezuela Guyana Suriname France Ecuador Puerto Rico Jamaica Cuba Zimbabwe Botswana Namibia Senegal Mali Mauritania Benin Niger Nigeria Cameroon Togo Ghana Côte d'Ivoire Guinea Guinea-Bissau Liberia Sierra Leone Burkina Faso Central African Rep. Congo Gabon Eq. Guinea Zambia Malawi Mozambique eSwatini Angola Burundi Israel Lebanon Madagascar Palestine Gambia Tunisia Algeria Jordan United Arab Emirates Qatar Kuwait Iraq Oman Vanuatu Cambodia Thailand Laos Myanmar Vietnam North Korea South Korea Mongolia India Bangladesh Bhutan Nepal Pakistan Afghanistan Tajikistan Kyrgyzstan Turkmenistan Iran Syria Armenia Sweden Belarus Ukraine Poland Austria Hungary Moldova Romania Lithuania Latvia Estonia Germany Bulgaria Greece Turkey Albania Croatia Switzerland Luxembourg Belgium Netherlands Portugal Spain Ireland New Caledonia Solomon Is. New Zealand Australia Sri Lanka China Taiwan Italy Denmark United Kingdom Iceland Azerbaijan Georgia Philippines Malaysia Brunei Slovenia Finland Slovakia Czechia Eritrea Japan Paraguay Yemen Saudi Arabia N. Cyprus Cyprus Morocco Egypt Libya Ethiopia Djibouti Somaliland Uganda Rwanda Bosnia and Herz. Macedonia Serbia Montenegro Kosovo Trinidad and Tobago S. Sudan
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Regulated
State monopoly
Grey market
Prohibited
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Reading the map

How This Atlas Classifies Regulation

"Is gambling legal here?" rarely has a yes/no answer. A country can license sports betting while banning online casino (France), reserve everything for a state operator (Norway), or regulate nothing and prohibit nothing in particular. This atlas therefore records a status per vertical — casino, betting, poker, lottery, bingo — using four classifications:

Regulated

A licensing regime exists and private operators can (or must) obtain local authorisation — the UK, Sweden, Spain, Ontario, Brazil.

State Monopoly

The product is legal but reserved for a state-owned or state-licensed exclusive operator — Norway, Finland (until 2027), most national lotteries.

Grey Market

Neither licensed locally nor effectively prohibited; offshore operators serve players at their own risk — large parts of Latin America and Asia.

Prohibited

Expressly illegal to offer, often with blocking and payment enforcement — online casino in Australia, nearly everything in China.

Two statuses can coexist in one country — and usually do. That nuance is why every country profile in this atlas opens with a status table rather than a verdict, and why each status cites the statute it rests on.

Cartographic Index

Regulation by Country

Europe holds the deepest concentration of licensed markets — from Britain's point-of-consumption regime to Germany's strict GlüStV stack — yet still spans the full spectrum, with Norway and Finland holding monopolies. The Americas are moving fastest: Brazil's market opened in 2025, Ontario pioneered open licensing in Canada, Alberta follows in 2026, and the US remains a state patchwork. Asia-Pacific runs the extremes — the Philippines licenses, Japan and Singapore channel play into state schemes, China and Thailand prohibit, and Australia splits the verticals.

JurisdictionRefRegulatorOnline casinoSports betting
United Kingdom GBR-001 UK Gambling Commission Regulated Regulated
Germany DEU-002 Glücksspielbehörde (GGL) Regulated Regulated
United States USA-003 State gaming regulators Grey Market Regulated
Canada CAN-004 Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario Regulated Regulated
Brazil BRA-005 SPA — Ministry of Finance Regulated Regulated
Spain ESP-006 Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego Regulated Regulated
Italy ITA-007 Dogane e Monopoli (ADM) Regulated Regulated
Netherlands NLD-008 Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) Regulated Regulated
Sweden SWE-009 Spelinspektionen Regulated Regulated
Australia AUS-010 ACMA + state regulators Prohibited Regulated

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Authorities

Who Regulates Online Gambling

Behind every status on the map stands an authority: a statutory body that issues licences, polices compliance and enforces against unlicensed supply. Their power varies as much as their geography — the Gambling Commission can reshape an entire market with a single licence condition, while offshore issuers like the Curaçao Gaming Authority compete on accessibility rather than reach. Knowing which authority stands behind an operator is the single fastest read on how protected its customers actually are.

UKGC · United Kingdom MGA · Malta CGA · Curaçao GGD · Gibraltar AGCO · Canada DGOJ · Spain KGC · Canada

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Change Tracker

Latest Regulatory Changes

Gambling law refuses to sit still: in the last two years alone Brazil opened a licensed market, Curaçao replaced its thirty-year-old licence system, Gibraltar rewrote its Gambling Act and the Netherlands raised its gambling tax twice. The tracker records each change as a dated, sourced event.

New law

New Zealand's Online Casino Gambling Act takes effect. The Act establishes a licensing regime for up to 15 online casino platforms; licences go to auction ahead of a licensed-market launch on December 1, 2026, when the grey market formally ends.

Licence round

Finland opens gambling licence applications. Applications open under the new Gambling Act, ending the Veikkaus monopoly for online casino and betting: 24 applications arrived in the opening phase, ahead of the licensed market starting July 1, 2027. Veikkaus keeps lotteries, scratch cards and physical slots.

Licence round

Alberta opens operator registration; launch set for July 13, 2026. The AGLC opens registration for private operators under the iGaming Alberta Act, with the regulated market scheduled to launch on July 13, 2026 via the new Alberta iGaming Corporation.

Full tracker →

Reference desk

Online Gambling Regulation, Answered

Is online gambling legal in the United States?
There is no federal licence: each state decides for itself. Eight states license online casino play (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and Maine), while online sports betting is legal in around 38 states. See the United States profile for the framework.
In which countries is online gambling legal?
Dozens of jurisdictions run full licensing regimes — the United Kingdom, Malta, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Ontario (Canada) and Brazil among them. The regulation map colours every tracked country by status, and the country index links each detailed profile.
Where is online gambling illegal?
Outright prohibition is rarer than assumed but real: Australia bans online casino and poker (while licensing sports wagering), and China, Thailand and the UAE prohibit virtually all private gambling, keeping at most a state lottery. Each ban is documented with its legal basis in the country profiles.
Who regulates online gambling?
Each jurisdiction appoints its own authority — the Gambling Commission in Great Britain, the Malta Gaming Authority, Spain’s DGOJ, Sweden’s Spelinspektionen, the AGCO in Ontario. The authorities register profiles each body, its enabling law and its mandate.
Who regulates online gambling in the US?
State regulators do: the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, the Michigan Gaming Control Board and their peers. Federal law (UIGEA, the Wire Act) polices payments and interstate wagering rather than licensing operators.
Which country has the strictest gambling regulation?
Among licensed markets, Germany is a strong candidate: a €1 stake limit on online slots, a cross-operator €1,000 monthly deposit ceiling, the LUGAS activity file and the OASIS exclusion register. Among prohibitionist regimes, China enforces the hardest ban. The map’s status colours make both visible at a glance.
How is online gambling regulated in practice?
Four levers recur in every regime: licensing (who may operate), taxation (usually on gross gaming revenue), player protection (deposit limits, self-exclusion, advertising rules) and enforcement (blocking, payment controls, fines). Country profiles document all four per jurisdiction, cited to the statute.
What is a gambling licence?
A regulator’s authorisation to offer specified gambling products under conditions — technical standards, player-fund protection, AML duties, fees and tax. Requirements and cost differ sharply by issuer: compare the major routes on the licence register.
Does the EU regulate online gambling?
No. There is no EU-wide gambling licence: each member state regulates for itself, subject to general EU law. That is why Malta, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany run materially different regimes — all documented in the European index.
What is GGR and why does it matter?
Gross Gaming Revenue — stakes minus winnings paid out. It is the standard base for gambling taxes and licence fees worldwide, which makes regimes comparable: the UK charges 21% of remote GGR, Sweden 22%, the Netherlands 37.8%. See the glossary for related terms.
What is a grey market?
A jurisdiction that neither licenses online gambling locally nor effectively prohibits it — offshore operators serve players at their own legal risk. Several large markets sit in this band; the map marks them explicitly rather than lumping them with licensed ones.
Which gambling licence is cheapest?
Offshore licences cost a fraction of national ones: Curaçao’s LOK B2C licence runs about €4,600 to apply and ~€47,000 a year, versus tiered six-figure fees in Gibraltar or GGY-scaled fees in Great Britain. The trade-off is market access — national regimes require their own licence regardless.
Can one operator hold licences in several countries?
Yes — and at scale it must: point-of-consumption rules mean an operator serving British, Swedish and Spanish customers needs a UKGC licence, a Spelinspektionen licence and a DGOJ licence simultaneously. Offshore licences cover the markets in between.
How often do gambling laws change?
Constantly — recent years brought Brazil’s market opening, Curaçao’s licensing reform, Gibraltar’s new Gambling Act, Dutch tax rises and Finland’s move to end its monopoly. The change tracker logs each dated change with its source.
How current is the information in this atlas?
Every entry carries the date it was last checked against its primary source, and the tracker records regulatory changes as dated, sourced events. Where a figure is in flux, the profile says so explicitly — see the methodology.
The atlas desk

Compiled From Primary Sources

Antique world atlas open on a teal desk with a brass drafting compass and magnifying glass
The atlas desk · Compiled from primary sources
10 Jurisdictions tracked
7 Regulators documented
35 Changes logged