Cambodia Suspends Casino-Run Online Gambling From October

Cambodia's interior minister has ordered every licensed casino in the country to stop running online gambling from October, acting on a decision by Prime Minister Hun Manet.

Sar Sokha, the deputy prime minister who heads the Interior Ministry, announced the suspension on Sept. 5 in Takeo province. Casinos were livestreaming betting to players off the premises, he said, and the money moving through those operations was hard to monitor.

The order lands on a sector the government has spent a year dismantling. Cambodia's anti-scam commission says it has frozen more than $300 million in accounts tied to online scam crimes and sent 446 cases involving 3,927 suspects to court since July 2025.

Casinos That Keep Streaming Risk Revocation

Sar Sokha said operators that continue the suspended activity after October could lose their licenses and face further legal action.

The suspension carries no end date. Ministries have been told to build the legal framework, digital infrastructure and qualified staff needed to supervise online play before any resumption is considered.

The Commercial Gambling Management Commission, which licenses Cambodian casinos, is separately drafting an "integrity and quality" test operators must pass to renew. Secretary General Yeth Vinel chaired a review of the draft on Sept. 4. Neither the criteria nor a start date has been published.

Scam Enforcement Has Already Cost 18 Casinos Their Licenses

Authorities inspected all 195 licensed casinos in the country during the campaign's first year. On Sept. 8 the anti-scam commission named the 18 whose licenses it had revoked over alleged scam links, with nine more suspended pending inquiries.

Cambodia stopped issuing online gambling licenses in 2019, which left betting streamed from licensed casino floors as one of the few legal routes to remote players. The campaign now closing that route opened with an inspection that tied 72 of the country's casinos to online fraud, reported in July.

No resumption date has been set, and the government has not said which regulator will police the October cutoff.

Treat gambling as entertainment you pay for. 18+, and if it stops feeling like entertainment, help exists at BeGambleAware and GamCare.