Cambodia is moving to ban online gambling, an industry that attracted a wave of Chinese investment in land-based casinos around the country, citing public safety and threat to social order concerns as the reasons for its decision.
According to Cambodian lawmakers, the online gambling sector has been used by foreign criminals to extort money and conduct other criminal activities.
Cambodia has become a popular hub for gambling, with multiple Chinese investors opening casinos around the country in recent years. The southern coastal city of Sihanoukville has been particularly attractive for casino investment, with dozens of casinos having sprung up there.
Most of the land-based casinos both in Sihanoukville and the rest of the country also have online gambling operations. These are usually intended for gamblers from Mainland China.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen signed on Sunday a directive that aims to crack down on all online gambling operations conducted on the territory of the country. The directive read that “the Royal Government of Cambodia will stop the issuance of online gambling policy and licenses, both within and outside of the Kingdom of Cambodia.” Existing licenses will not be terminated, but they will not be renewed when they expire, it also became known.
China has been a close ally of Cambodia, and its biggest investor. It too has been trying to clamp down on remote gambling. It recently criticized the Philippines for its booming offshore gambling industry. Under the POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators) program, the country issues online gambling licenses to companies that are based in the Philippines but provide their services to customers based outside the country.
Cambodia’s Online Gambling Crackdown
Cambodia issues online gambling licenses under a regulatory system similar to the Philippine one. Under the country’s regulations, residents are not allowed to engage in those licensed operations.
While Cambodia’s licensing system has clearly drawn quite some interest from investors, it has also apparently become popular with criminals.
The Sunday directive read that “some foreign criminals have taken refuge in the form of [online] gambling
News about the new directive emerged just days after the Sihanoukville police arrested more than 120 Chinese nationals who were allegedly running an illegal online gambling and extortion ring in the city. The operation was conducted jointly by local police and Chinese authorities.
Last week, the information technology department at Cambodia’s Interior Ministry issued a warning to online gamblers that by opening accounts with offshore operators, they were exposing themselves to potential hacking and phishing attacks.
In a statement, the Interior Department said that the number of online gamblers in the country has increased dramatically in recent years and that authorities are looking into ways to address the issue and to also crack down phishing schemes that use gambling websites.
Koem Sereyvuth, Deputy Director of the Interior Ministry’s IT department, told local media that phishing is an advanced tech crime that “our police are incapable of addressing right now” but that they will continue to learn how to cope with it.
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