Cambodia Revokes 20 Casino Licences and Suspends 29 in Scam Crackdown

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%.

• Cambodia has revoked 20 casino licences and suspended 29 more, with a further 23 expired, after investigating all 195 licensed casinos in the country
• The figures were announced on 19 August by the Secretariat of the Ad Hoc Commission for Combating Online Scams, reported through the state news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse
• Authorities acted against 751 suspected scam locations between July 2025 and 31 July 2026, closing 605 of them
• Over the same period 388 cases were filed in the courts involving 4,147 suspects of 27 nationalities, alongside the deportation of tens of thousands of undocumented foreign nationals
• International tourist arrivals fell 47.8% in the first five months of 2026, a cost the government has absorbed while pressing the campaign

A Quarter of the Licensed Estate Has Been Touched

Cambodia has revoked the licences of 20 casinos and suspended those of 29 others as part of a national campaign against technology-enabled scam operations, according to figures announced on 19 August by the Secretariat of the Ad Hoc Commission for Combating Online Scams and carried by the state news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse.

A further 23 licences have expired. Set against a licensed estate of 195 casinos, all of which the authorities say they investigated, that means roughly a quarter of the market has had its licence revoked, suspended or allowed to lapse.

The casino figures sit inside a much larger enforcement effort. Between July 2025 and 31 July 2026, authorities acted against 751 suspected scam locations and shut down 605 of them. Over the same period, 388 cases were filed before the courts involving 4,147 suspects drawn from 27 nationalities, and tens of thousands of undocumented foreign nationals linked to the operations were deported.

Touch Sokhak, Deputy Spokesperson at Cambodia's Ministry of Interior, framed the licence actions as a statement of intent, saying the closures demonstrated the government's determination to combat online scams and to make sure that Cambodia did not become a money-laundering haven for technology-related crime.

Describing findings from the Anti-Cyber Crime Department, Touch Sokhak said online scam centres operate as organised criminal networks rather than ordinary fraud operations.

The Earlier Round Named Names

This is not the first tranche. In February, Cambodia's Commercial Gambling Management Commission revoked four licences, covering Jinbei, Jinbei 4 and GC Casino in Sihanoukville and Golden Fortune in Kandal Province, and suspended a fifth at Casino Khom in Kampot.

The stated reason then was more specific than anything in this week's announcement. Regulatory advisor Chhoeng Chantha said at the time that those licences were revoked because they were linked to the business alliance of Chen Zhi, who runs Prince Group Holdings and who is alleged to have been behind a large cross-border fraud operation. Chen Zhi was arrested in January 2026 and deported to China, where he faces criminal charges. He has not been convicted, and no response from him or his companies has been reported.

The August announcement does not name the 20 operators whose licences were revoked, or say whether any are connected to that earlier network.

Licensing Has Become the Fastest Enforcement Tool Available

The striking thing about these numbers is not the prosecutions, it is the licences. Building 388 court cases against 4,147 suspects across 27 nationalities is slow, expensive and dependent on cooperation from other jurisdictions. Revoking a licence is an administrative act that takes effect immediately and does not require proving anything to a criminal standard. Cambodia has worked out that its gaming regulator can move at a speed its courts cannot, and has used licensing as the primary lever against premises it associates with scam activity. That is effective, and it carries an obvious risk: an administrative process with immediate commercial consequences and a lower evidential bar is exactly the mechanism most vulnerable to being applied inconsistently, and there is no published account of what evidence supported each of the 20 revocations.

A 47.8% Fall in Arrivals Is the Real Test of Political Commitment

Tourist arrivals down 47.8% in five months is not a rounding error, and it is the number that will determine whether this campaign survives contact with the next budget. Cambodia's casino sector has historically been built around foreign visitors, and a crackdown that closes premises and deports tens of thousands of foreign nationals removes demand as well as supply. Governments usually discover the cost of this kind of enforcement about eighteen months in, when the fiscal effect lands and the reputational benefit has already been banked. The interesting question for anyone watching the region is whether the licence actions continue at this pace once the tourism figures start appearing in revenue forecasts rather than in enforcement press releases.

Regional Licensing Credibility Is What Is Actually Being Rebuilt

For legitimate operators, the significance is reputational rather than operational. A Cambodian licence has carried a discount in international due diligence for years, because the jurisdiction was associated with premises that turned out to be doing something other than gaming. Investigating the entire licensed estate and acting on a quarter of it is the sort of thing a regulator does when it wants that discount removed. Whether it works depends on transparency the announcement has not yet provided: which operators, on what evidence, with what route of appeal. Counterparties assessing Cambodian exposure will want those answers before they revise anything, and suppliers with customers in the market should be asking now whether their partners appear on any of the three lists.

Cambodia has moved faster against its own licensed casinos than any regulator in the region. What it has not yet published is the reasoning.