Cambodia: all our coverage

Malacañang has asked the Department of Foreign Affairs to look at whether January's visa-free scheme for Chinese visitors is being used to staff illegal offshore gaming and scam hubs. It is a review, not a decision, and the scheme was due one before it expires anyway.

Two courts in Fujian have sentenced the leader of the Wei family crime group, his nephew and a third defendant to death for scam compounds and casinos run under armed protection in Myanmar's Kokang region. It is the third of Kokang's "four families" to reach a verdict in China, and the first two ended in executions within about four months.

The State Department's 2026 Trafficking in Persons Report says senior Cambodian officials benefited from and protected scam compounds, that no scam centre trafficker was prosecuted, and that casinos with a documented history of hosting scam centres were licensed in January. It lands as Cambodia sends inspectors into casinos to enforce its online gambling ban.

Task forces of regulators, police, immigration and labour officials and prosecutors will start inspecting licensed casinos this month, Cambodia's state news agency reports. The government now calls unlicensed online gambling a form of scam, and says it will prosecute it as one.

Data obtained by an opposition lawmaker show Kangwon Land's slot machine manufacturing business has run at a loss every year since 2020, while a Philippine sales office that cost about ₩700 million found no new distributors. The losses total about $11.1 million, not the $236 million some English-language reports have carried.

Thailand's digital ministry says it blocked 945,075 gambling-related URLs in the year to September, most of them found by its own AI-assisted monitoring and blocked under court orders. The count measures how hard the state is pushing; it does not show whether the market has shrunk.

NagaWorld's operator says gross gaming revenue for the first nine months of 2026 fell to $417.9 million, with VIP rollings down by more than half. Set against its half-year results, the figures imply a third quarter about 43% weaker than a year ago, and this time the mass market fell too.

Cambodia's anti-scam commission says inspectors confirmed that 24 casinos in three provinces ended livestreamed gaming, football betting and online lotteries by the 30 September deadline and moved the equipment out. It has not said how many casinos were running online operations in the first place.

The International Monetary Fund's 2026 review of Cambodia finds that the casino regulator checks little more than applicants' criminal record certificates and that beneficial owners face no fit and proper test at all. With most casino licences due for renewal around 2027, it wants the gambling law amended first.

Camarines Sur representative Arnie Fuentebella told colleagues the application has been "neither approved nor disapproved", contradicting the interior secretary, who said last week it had been denied. Roque is wanted at home on non-bailable trafficking charges tied to a former offshore gaming hub.

The State Department says Southeast Asian criminal organisations including Prince Group defrauded Americans of at least $18.2bn in 2025, nearly double the 2024 estimate. It has not named the 32. The same day, Cambodia said its major scam compounds have been cleared and the networks have moved to smaller sites.

The prime minister told workers in the sector to find other jobs, said most of them are foreigners, and ruled out reopening online gambling or issuing new licences. Casinos that keep running online operations after the deadline face revocation, on top of a licence review that has already closed dozens.

Cambodia's prime minister says some licensed casinos "operate from a single shophouse" and contribute little to the economy. The order lands as the regulator drafts renewal criteria and a month before the October deadline to close the online loopholes it found in 195 inspections, 72 of which ended in closure.

The International Alliance Combating Telecom and Cyber Fraud was formally launched on 10 September, with the United Nations and Interpol represented as observers. Its initiating countries include Cambodia, whose regulator has spent the past year revoking casino licences over links to exactly the scam operations the alliance exists to disrupt.

Prime Minister Hun Manet has ordered a nationwide suspension of live online betting operated from casino premises, with licence revocation for anyone who ignores it. Play resumes only once the government has built the legal and digital controls it says are missing, and the order arrives days after the regulator began drafting a suitability test for licence renewals.

The Commercial Gambling Management Commission is building an integrity and quality evaluation framework that would set minimum conditions for holding a casino licence. It follows a year in which the regulator revoked 20 licences and suspended 29 more over links to online scam operations.

Forensic work on more than 400 seized devices has turned an illegal online gambling investigation into an organised crime case spanning continents. Court documents allege contact with senior politicians, police and immigration officials. Nobody in those categories has been named or charged.

Every one of the country's 195 licensed casinos has been investigated, and roughly a quarter of them have now lost or had their licence suspended. The government is presenting the campaign as progress. Tourist arrivals have fallen 47.8%.

Meta has removed more than 159 million fraudulent ads and shut down 10.9 million scam-linked accounts in 2025, while a joint international operation with the Royal Thai Police, FBI, and US Department of Justice disabled 150,000 accounts tied to Southeast Asian scam centres and led to 21 arrests, as criminal networks increasingly use fake gambling platforms to lure victims.

Just weeks after taking office, the government of Thailand's new Prime Minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, has been rocked by a corruption scandal. A former senior

The head of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has confirmed that a recent government directive to block e-wallet payments to gambling

Just as Sri Lanka takes its first major step into the world of integrated casino resorts, lawmakers have approved a bill to create a new Gambling

The turbulent run of Southeast Asian casino operator Donaco International on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) is coming to an end. The company is

The online gambling industry is one of the most regulated sectors in the world.For operators, affiliates, payment providers, and software suppliers,