Gambling in Bhutan: Laws, Lottery and Online Casinos

Published by Casino News Daily editorial teamReviewed byFilip RadulovicOur editorial approach

Bhutan prohibits gambling in almost all its forms. The Penal Code of Bhutan 2004 makes it an offence to stake anything of value on a game of chance or an uncertain event, and the offence applies to the person who places the bet as well as to the organiser. The one significant exception is a state-owned lottery, run since 2016 by a company under the Ministry of Finance. There are no casinos, no licensing system for private gambling operators and no lawful route for offering online casino games to people in Bhutan. Since 2020 the authorities have concentrated on gambling organised through social media and messaging apps, freezing bank accounts and prosecuting repeat offenders. This guide explains how the law developed, how it is enforced and what it means for players.

Key points

Sections 393 to 395 of the Penal Code of Bhutan 2004 define gambling, grade it as a petty misdemeanour (one month to less than one year in prison) and exclude authorised lottery agents.
The government-owned Bhutan Lottery is the only lawful gambling product. Private lotteries, including those run by religious bodies or NGOs without approval, are illegal.
There is no casino or online gambling licence. The Information, Communications and Media Act 2018 contains provisions on online gambling, and broadcast and online content may not advertise gambling.
Players are not exempt: police treat anyone who bets money, even small sums, as committing the offence. Repeat offenders are arrested and charged.
Since 1 January 2026, winnings from lotteries, betting or gambling are subject to 20% withholding tax under the Income Tax Act of Bhutan 2025.
No gambling legislation has been issued for the Gelephu Mindfulness City, and no official casino plan for it was found.

Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.

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Historical development

Bhutan’s modern involvement with gambling began with a lottery sold mainly outside the country. According to the then Prime Minister, quoted by The Bhutanese in 2013, the Bhutan Lottery began in 1977 and was sold in those Indian states that permitted lotteries, under a protocol to the Bhutan–India Trade, Commerce and Transit agreement signed on 28 July 2006. A 2024 editorial in the same paper describes a government Lottery Directorate and an Indian lottery agent behind the business.

From 2010 the newspaper The Bhutanese published a series of investigations alleging that Bhutan was losing large sums in revenue and unpaid prizes. In its 2024 editorial, the paper recalled that the government ordered a special audit by the Royal Audit Authority, which confirmed the reporting and found that officials of the Lottery Directorate had received illegal payments. The government closed the lottery on 23 August 2011, ended the agency contract and shut the Directorate, describing the business as unethical and inconsistent with the country’s Gross National Happiness values (The Bhutanese, January 2016). The same report found that around 17 Indian companies had continued to sell lotteries under the “Bhutan Lottery” name after the closure. The Finance Minister said that no one was authorised to run a Bhutan lottery outside Bhutan.

Reviving the lottery was a 2013 election pledge. In August 2015 the cabinet approved a new state-owned enterprise (SOE), a company owned by the government but run by its own board, instead of re-creating a ministry directorate (The Bhutanese, August 2015). The Ministry of Finance records that Royal Bhutan Lottery Limited was launched in Phuentsholing on 8 April 2016, with a board chaired by the Finance Secretary. Its first product was a monthly paper lottery for the domestic market, and at the launch the Prime Minister asked the public to limit their ticket purchases (The Bhutanese, May 2016). The company had been created partly to restart sales in India, but by 2024 The Bhutanese wrote that it had “become just a domestic lottery company in Bhutan”.

Alongside the state lottery, informal gambling has long existed, notably card games and stalls at festivals. According to a 2019 Kuensel report, a Department of Law and Order public notice first issued in 2011 applies to different forms of gambling and related stalls, particularly during festivals and tshechus (religious festivals); the 2019 reissue explicitly prohibits lottery businesses run by private individuals or entities. Since about 2020 the main concern of the authorities has shifted to online gambling organised through social media.

Legal framework

Checking gambling legislation and licensing

The Penal Code of Bhutan 2004

The central statute is the Penal Code of Bhutan 2004, which has a chapter on gambling. The full text of these sections could not be read in the online copy, so the wording below follows sections 393 and 394 as quoted by police in The Bhutanese and section 395 as reported by BBS and Kuensel:

Section 393 (definition): a person commits gambling if he or she stakes or wagers something of value on the outcome of a contest of chance, or on a future contingent event not under his or her control or influence, on an agreement to receive something of value if a certain outcome occurs.
Section 394 (grading): gambling is a petty misdemeanour.
Section 395 (exception): according to BBS (2020), an authorised lottery such as Bhutan Lottery is not considered gambling under this section. A Kuensel report reproduced by Public Gaming Research Institute describes the exception as covering authorised lottery agents.

The definition is wide. It does not depend on the amount at stake, the place or the medium, so it covers card games at home for money, betting on sport or archery, and games played online. Section 13 of the Code provides that a person convicted of a petty misdemeanour is sentenced to imprisonment for a minimum of one month and a maximum of less than one year. No amendment to the gambling sections was found in the sources reviewed for this guide.

Lottery rules

No separate gambling or lottery act exists. According to the 2019 Kuensel report, lottery businesses require approval from the trade department, and fundraising lotteries by religious institutions require approval from the Commission for Religious Organisations (Chhoedey Lhentshog). Without such approval, “the lottery business and related activities are all illegal”. The same report said that a Bhutan Lottery Rule 2017 was still being drafted at that time. Whether it has since been adopted could not be verified.

Media and communications law

The Information, Communications and Media Act of Bhutan 2018 (ICM Act) is the second relevant statute. The Council of Europe’s cybercrime country profile lists “online gambling (sections 429–430)” among the cyber offences in the Act. In 2020 the Department of Law and Order cited section 429 as prohibiting online gambling (BBS, May 2020). The full wording and penalties of these sections could not be checked against an official text for this guide. Separately, the Rules and Regulations on Content 2019, issued by the Bhutan InfoComm and Media Authority (BICMA) under the ICM Act, state in section 2.4.6(b) that no content may advertise “gambling of any kind”.

Regulator and licensing model

Bhutan follows a prohibition model with a state monopoly for lotteries. Under a prohibition model, gambling is a criminal offence unless a specific exception applies. Under a monopoly, only one, usually state-owned, provider is permitted to offer a product. There is no gambling regulator and no licensing scheme for casinos, betting shops, gaming machines or online gambling.

The responsible bodies are:

Department of Law and Order (Ministry of Home Affairs): issues public notices on gambling, monitors online gambling groups and coordinates enforcement. Its officials have stated that it has no direct enforcement role itself (Bhutan Today, 2023).
Royal Bhutan Police: investigates offences, arrests suspects and forwards charge sheets for prosecution.
Royal Monetary Authority: the central bank, which has worked with the Department of Law and Order to freeze bank accounts linked to gambling.
Ministry of Finance: owner of the state lottery company.

The lottery company, launched as Royal Bhutan Lottery Limited and now referred to as Bhutan Lottery Limited, sells paper draws and special “bumper” draws through a network of district agents, and also runs online lottery games. According to The Bhutanese in July 2025, bumper draws are held live at the Bhutan Broadcasting Service in Thimphu. The Monsoon Lucky Bumper 2025 had tickets at Nu 300 and a top prize of Nu 20 million. The company had paid out more than Nu 432.9 million in prizes since its establishment, as of June 2025. In 2021 BBS described the state lottery as the only formal online gambling platform in the country, and noted that the government had approved an e-lottery in 2020 (BBS, September 2021). No published figures on the company’s revenue or its contribution to public finances were found.

Online gambling and enforcement

Online casino games on mobile devices

No online casino, sportsbook or poker site can be licensed to serve Bhutan. Apart from the state lottery’s own online games, all online gambling falls within the Penal Code definition and, according to the authorities, the ICM Act. In practice, enforcement has focused on locally organised gambling run through social media rather than on international websites.

Social media gambling

The most common forms are betting on “teer” results, dice games, wheel-of-luck games and card games organised in group chats. Teer is a numbers game based on the results of archery contests held in Shillong, in the Indian state of Meghalaya. In 2020 police described how an organiser forms a group of around 100 members, collects stakes and pays a winner based on the Shillong Teer results, keeping 15 to 20% of the money (BBS, October 2020). Variants circulated under names such as “Bhutan Teer” and “Night Teer”. Police said that organisers would no longer simply be warned but would be charged under section 393.

The scale has since grown:

In September 2024 the Department of Law and Order and the Royal Monetary Authority froze 77 bank accounts linked to people coordinating online gambling. The groups, mainly on Telegram and WeChat, had more than 20,000 members (BBS, September 2024).
In August 2025 the department reported that it had identified 23 TikTok accounts running “Spin the Wheel” and “Lucky Draw” games during live sessions, in which participants paid to enter. An official said these met the legal definition of gambling even when the prizes were goods. Another 26 bank accounts were frozen, and more than 100 gambling-related cases had been found on Telegram (BBS, August 2025).
Government data presented at a press conference in August 2025 identified 476 gambling activities across platforms: 422 on Telegram, 40 on TikTok, 11 on WeChat and one on WhatsApp. The Home Minister announced that 11 repeat offenders would be prosecuted and said that “enough warnings and chances have been given” (The Bhutanese, August 2025).

Blocking and payments

No published list of blocked gambling websites, and no formal order directing internet service providers to block gambling sites, was found. The main tools are account freezes through the banking system, public notices, social-media monitoring and requests to platforms. In December 2025 the government told the National Assembly that BICMA works with the police, the Department of Law and Order and the major platforms to report and remove harmful content, and that it was preparing amendments to the ICM Act to strengthen enforcement (The Bhutanese, December 2025). Those amendments concern pornographic and violent content and do not refer to gambling. Officials have acknowledged the limits of enforcement. In 2023 the Department of Law and Order said restricting online activity was technically difficult. In 2025 the Deputy Chief of Police estimated that police could trace only about half of those involved, while the rest continued “underground” (The Bhutanese, October 2025).

Gambling advertising is not permitted. Apart from the content rules noted above, the Department of Law and Order has warned that people who promote online gambling, as well as those who take part, face legal action.

Position of players

Bhutanese law treats the player as an offender. Section 393 of the Penal Code applies to any person who stakes something of value, so the person who bets commits the offence, not only the organiser. The police have said that the amount does not matter: “The seized amount, be it Nu 1 or be it a huge cash, is the same”, and even a single chhertum (the smallest coin) counts (The Bhutanese, 2018). In October 2025 the Deputy Chief of Police confirmed that online Ludo or card games among friends are gambling “as long as money is involved”.

Recorded cases include:

18 gambling cases and 88 adults arrested in Thimphu in 2018 up to late October, with all gambling cases charge-sheeted to court;
12 cases received by police and about 27 people convicted for online gambling in one year, according to the Home Minister in 2021 (The Bhutanese, December 2021);
60 card-gambling cases between 2022 and October 2025, 16 cases involving online Ludo, dice, teer and lotteries, and 40 to 50 people recently arrested for online gambling, according to police figures published in October 2025.

Police practice, as described in 2025, is graduated. First-time offenders are usually advised and warned. Repeat offenders face arrest, detention and charges in court. This applies to Bhutanese betting with foreign websites as much as to local group games, although no reported prosecution specifically concerning an international online casino was found. Buying tickets from the state lottery, by contrast, is lawful. Readers should note that lotteries sold online under the “Bhutan Lottery” name by foreign companies have no connection with the Bhutanese government.

Taxation

The Department of Revenue and Customs announced in December 2025 that the Income Tax Act of Bhutan 2025 would come into force on 1 January 2026. Under the new Act, companies and other payers must withhold tax at 20% on “winning from lotteries, betting, or gambling”, for both residents and non-residents. Before the new Act, the state lottery already deducted 20% tax from prizes of Nu 5,000 or more before payment. Because private gambling is unlawful, this withholding in practice applies mainly to state lottery prizes. Taxation does not make an unlawful winning lawful.

No specific gaming tax on operators exists, since no private operators can be licensed. No published information was found on how the state lottery company’s own income is taxed or on the revenue it contributes to the state.

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Bhutan has no national self-exclusion register, no gambling-specific helpline and no statutory duty of care on operators. Because gambling is largely prohibited, policy has relied on criminal law, public notices and education. In 2021 the Home Minister said that education from primary school onwards was “the best solution”. According to the Department of Law and Order in 2023, no cases had required state assistance for gambling addiction, and no dedicated research on online gambling had been carried out.

Help with gambling-related harm is available through general mental health services. Psychiatrists at the national referral hospital in Thimphu have described problem gambling as an addiction comparable to alcohol and tobacco dependence, and have urged people affected to seek treatment (BBS, 2012). The PEMA Secretariat, a government agency that also serves as secretariat to the National Drug Task Force, runs a helpline on 1010 or 112. The authorities have also linked gambling to debt, family breakdown and other crime, including theft and assault. General guidance on recognising and limiting harm is available in our responsible gambling guide.

Recent and upcoming developments

Penal Code amendment fails (December 2025). In August 2025 BBS reported that the National Council would consider a Penal Code (Amendment) Bill containing a gambling section, and that its Legislative Committee proposed longer prison terms. On 25 December 2025 the Bill failed in the National Council: of 23 members present, 11 voted in favour, 3 against and 9 abstained, short of the 13 votes needed (BBS, December 2025). BBS reported that a new bill may be introduced after a year. The existing petty misdemeanour grading therefore remains in force.
Continued account freezes and prosecutions (2024–2025). Joint action by the Department of Law and Order and the Royal Monetary Authority, and prosecution of repeat offenders, continued through 2025.
Gelephu Mindfulness City. The Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) is a special administrative region in southern Bhutan with its own legislative framework. Its Application of Laws Act 2024 applies a list of Singapore commercial statutes from 26 December 2024, none of which concerns gambling, and provides that Bhutanese law continues to apply to other matters. The GMC legislation register, accessed in October 2026, lists laws on companies, employment, financial services, tax and contracts but none on gambling, gaming or lotteries. The GMC’s stated priority sectors do not include gaming (BBS, September 2024), and no official proposal for a casino in the GMC was found.

Casino listings for players in Bhutan

The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that any operator is licensed in Bhutan, where no online casino can be licensed and the state lottery is the only lawful gambling product. Gambling, including online gambling, is an offence under the Penal Code of Bhutan for players as well as organisers, so these listings must not be read as an indication that playing is lawful.

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Key points

Top Rated Online Casinos for Bhutan

Historical development

Legal framework

The Penal Code of Bhutan 2004

Lottery rules

Media and communications law

Regulator and licensing model

Online gambling and enforcement

Social media gambling

Blocking and payments

Position of players

Taxation

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Recent and upcoming developments

Casino listings for players in Bhutan

Related country guides

Sources and further reading

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