Legal casino gambling age in Brunei
Brunei Darussalam prohibits almost all forms of gambling and has no licensing system for casinos, betting, lotteries or online gambling. The central statute is the Common Gaming Houses Act (Chapter 28), which dates from 1919 and makes it an offence to keep a gaming house, run or promote a lottery, deal in gaming machines, play in a gaming house, gamble in a public place or buy a lottery ticket. The Act is enforced by the Royal Brunei Police Force, which regularly raids private homes and other premises used for gambling. Islam is the official religion, and religious authorities have also treated gambling-like products as forbidden, most visibly in the 2024 ban on claw machines.
Key points
- The Common Gaming Houses Act (Chapter 28), first enacted as Enactment No. 3 of 1919, is the principal gambling law. It contains no licensing regime; the only route to lawful gaming is a written exemption order by the Sultan in Council.
- Under the current revised edition (2019), keeping a common gaming house or running a lottery carries a fine of B$5,000 to B$50,000, imprisonment of up to three years, or both. Playing in a gaming house or gaming in public carries a fine of B$10,000 and imprisonment for six months.
- No operator is licensed to offer online gambling. The national telecommunications regulator lists online gambling as an offence under Chapter 28, enforced by the Royal Brunei Police Force.
- Players are not exempt: playing in a gaming house and buying a lottery ticket are offences in themselves, and courts have fined individual participants.
- Brunei has no personal income tax, no legal gambling industry to tax and no national self-exclusion scheme or dedicated gambling helpline that we could identify.
Last reviewed: 7 October 2026.
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Historical development
Brunei’s gambling law predates independence by more than six decades. The Common Gaming Houses Act was enacted as Enactment No. 3 of 1919, while Brunei was a British protectorate, and was later consolidated as Chapter 28 of the 1951 revised laws (Attorney General’s Chambers, Laws of Brunei, Chapter 28). Its long title describes it as an Act “to consolidate and amend the law relating to common gaming houses”. Like similar colonial-era laws in the region, it criminalises the premises, the organisers and the players rather than licensing gambling.
The Act has been amended several times. The 2002 revised edition published by the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) records amendments in 1959, 1967, 1977 and 2000. A later revised edition, dated 2019 and reproduced by the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly’s legal network (AIPA Legal Network, Common Gaming Houses Act, Chapter 28, Revised Edition 2019), contains higher penalties and a new section 4A on gaming machines, reflecting the spread of electronic gaming devices.
The religious context has also shaped policy. Article 3(1) of the Constitution, first adopted in 1959, provides that “the official religion of Brunei Darussalam shall be the Islamic Religion” (Constitute Project, Brunei Darussalam’s Constitution of 1959 with amendments through 2006). Islam prohibits gambling (maisir). No casino, state lottery, totalisator or licensed bookmaker has operated in modern Brunei, and the country has never introduced the integrated-resort or state-lottery models adopted by some of its neighbours.
Legal framework
The Common Gaming Houses Act (Chapter 28)
The Act rests on a few broad definitions. Gaming means “playing any game of chance or of mixed chance and skill for money or money’s worth”. A common gaming house includes any place kept or used for gaming to which the public has or may have access, and any place kept for habitual gaming. A place is defined widely to include any house, office, room or building, any open or enclosed spot, any ship, boat or vessel and any vehicle. A lottery is any game, method or device by which money or money’s worth is distributed by chance, “whether the game, method or device is held, drawn, exercised or managed within or outside Brunei Darussalam” (AIPA Legal Network, Chapter 28). That last phrase means that a foreign lottery offered to people in Brunei falls within the Act.
The main offences and penalties in the 2019 revised edition are:
| Section | Offence | Penalty stated in the Act |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Keeping or using a place as a common gaming house, assisting in its management, receiving money for lottery chances, selling lottery tickets, announcing or publishing lottery results, and running competitions without a substantial element of skill | Fine of not less than B$5,000 and not exceeding B$50,000, imprisonment for up to 3 years, or both |
| 4A | Importing, manufacturing, assembling, supplying, selling, leasing, servicing, repairing or adapting gaming machines | Fine of not less than B$10,000 and not exceeding B$100,000, imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both, for every gaming machine seized |
| 5 | Advancing money to establish or conduct a gaming house or lottery, or profiting from one | Fine of B$20,000 and imprisonment for 12 months |
| 6 | Playing in a common gaming house | Fine of B$10,000 and imprisonment for 6 months |
| 7 | Gaming in any public place | Fine of B$10,000 and imprisonment for 6 months |
| 8 | Instigating, promoting or intentionally facilitating gaming in public | Fine of B$10,000 and imprisonment for 6 months |
| 9 | Staking money on a public lottery or buying a lottery ticket | Fine of B$2,000 |
Brunei statutes customarily state the penalty in the form “a fine of $10,000 and imprisonment for 6 months”. Press reports of charges suggest that at least the fines operate as maximums: one report described the section 4(a) penalty as 12 months’ imprisonment and a fine of up to B$20,000, and the section 6(1) penalty as six months’ imprisonment and a fine of up to B$10,000 (The Borneo Post, 13 July 2012). The 2002 edition on the AGC website shows lower figures for section 4, namely a fine of B$20,000 and imprisonment for 12 months, and has no section 4A; readers should therefore check which edition and amendments apply to a given date.
The Act also relies on statutory presumptions, meaning rules that a fact is taken as proved unless the accused shows otherwise. A person found in a common gaming house, or escaping from it during a police entry, is presumed to have been playing there (section 6). A person selling lottery tickets, or found with ten or more tickets or betting records, is presumed to be assisting a public lottery (section 10). Section 16 sets out presumptions that a place is a common gaming house, for example where gaming instruments are found or where police entry is obstructed (AIPA Legal Network, Chapter 28).
Enforcement powers are extensive. Police may arrest without warrant any person found gaming in a public place and seize gaming instruments (section 7). A magistrate or senior police officer may issue a warrant to enter and search premises “by night or by day”, and to seize instruments of gaming and money (section 13). Section 14A allows police officers with reasonable grounds to arrest and search persons without a warrant (AIPA Legal Network, Chapter 28).
The only route to lawful gaming is section 25, under which “His Majesty in Council may by written order exempt any house or group of houses or locality from the provisions of this Act” (AGC, Chapter 28). We found no published exemption order and no evidence that the power has been used to authorise a casino or lottery.
Other statutes named in secondary sources
Some secondary sources refer to a Brunei “Betting and Sweepstakes (Prohibition) Act” and a “Lotteries Act”. We could not verify that either statute exists in Brunei. The AGC’s official chapter-by-chapter listing of the revised Laws of Brunei contains Chapter 28 (Common Gaming Houses) but no title containing the words betting, sweepstake, lottery or gambling (AGC, Laws of Brunei: revised text). Statutes with similar names exist in Malaysia and Singapore, which may explain the confusion. As far as the official record shows, lotteries in Brunei are dealt with within Chapter 28 itself, through the lottery offences in sections 4, 9 and 10.
The Syariah Penal Code Order 2013
The Syariah Penal Code Order 2013 was published in the Government Gazette on 22 October 2013. Under section 3, “save as otherwise expressly provided therein, this Order shall apply to Muslims and non-Muslims”, with jurisdiction resting exclusively with the Syariah Courts (Syariah Penal Code Order 2013, English text, via the International Commission of Jurists). It was brought into force in phases. According to a law firm commentary, the first phase, covering offences punishable by fines or imprisonment, began in May 2014, and the code was fully in force from 3 April 2019 (Rozaiman Abdul Rahman, Conventus Law, 19 July 2019). The US Commission on International Religious Freedom gives 22 May 2014 for the first phase and records the Sultan’s May 2019 moratorium on executions (USCIRF, Brunei factsheet, December 2020).
Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the English text of the Order that we reviewed contains no specific gambling offence. Its hadd offences (offences with fixed punishments under Islamic law) are theft (sariqah), robbery (hirabah), illicit sexual intercourse and related offences, false accusation (qazaf), drinking intoxicating drinks and apostasy (irtidad). Its list of general offences in sections 192 to 251 covers matters such as failure to attend Friday prayers, disrespecting Ramadan, khalwat (close proximity between unrelated men and women), religious teaching without approval and non-payment of zakat, but not gambling (ICJ text; AIPA Legal Network, Syariah Penal Code Order 2013, amendments to S 35/2018). Gambling by Muslims and non-Muslims alike is therefore prosecuted under the secular Common Gaming Houses Act in the ordinary courts. Religious law still matters in practice: fatwas (formal religious rulings) issued by the State Mufti’s Office inform government policy, as the claw machine ban shows. Whether any other religious enactment applies to gambling by Muslims could not be verified from the sources available to us.
Regulator and licensing model
Brunei follows a prohibition model: gambling is unlawful unless specifically exempted, and there is no licensing authority, no licence category and no published list of licensed operators. There is therefore no gambling regulator in the usual sense. The relevant bodies are:
- the Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF), whose Criminal Investigation Department includes a specialist gambling suppression and vice prevention unit that investigates offences under Chapter 28;
- the Ministry of Home Affairs, which licenses public entertainment and has revoked licences for devices it considers to involve gambling;
- the Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry (AITI), the telecommunications and broadcasting regulator, which lists online gambling among unlawful online content; and
- the Attorney General’s Chambers, which prosecutes offences and publishes the official text of the laws.
Unlike Malaysia or Singapore, Brunei has no casino, state lottery, licensed betting operator or racing totalisator. Because the exemption power in section 25 of Chapter 28 has, as far as we could find, never been used to create a gambling market, there is no gross gaming revenue (GGR, the amount staked minus winnings paid) to report.
Online gambling
No form of online gambling is permitted in Brunei, and no domestic or foreign operator holds a Brunei licence. The Common Gaming Houses Act was written for physical premises and does not mention the internet, but its definitions are broad. A “place” can be any room, building, vehicle or spot; a “gaming machine” includes any electronic machine or device “including any computer program used in such machine or device”; and a lottery is covered whether it is managed inside or outside Brunei (AIPA Legal Network, Chapter 28).
The official position is that online gambling falls under Chapter 28. AITI’s Table of National Laws for Online Content lists “online gambling” as an offence under the Common Gaming House Act (Chapter 28), with the Royal Brunei Police Force as the enforcement agency.
Enforcement against online and electronic gambling has mainly targeted local premises and organisers:
- In July 2012, the RBPF’s Anti-Vice and Gambling Suppression Unit raided premises in Muara town and found 23 computers believed to be used for gambling. Eighteen men, including ten government officers, were detained under sections 4(a) and 6(1) of Chapter 28 (The Borneo Post, 13 July 2012).
- In May 2018, Belait police seized three gambling machines and detained twelve people, including seven foreign nationals, under sections 6 and 8 of the Act (European Gaming, 15 May 2018).
- In September 2023, according to trade press, the police gambling unit arrested four suspects over gambling through a mobile phone application named “Real Fish Prawn Crab” (SiGMA News, 18 March 2024).
We found no official, publicly available information on whether Brunei maintains a blocklist of foreign gambling websites, directs internet service providers to block them, or instructs banks to stop gambling payments. Some secondary sources assert that offshore sites are “actively blocked”, but we could not confirm this from an official source, and it should not be treated as established. Likewise, we found no specific advertising code for gambling; since publishing lottery results and promoting gaming are themselves offences under sections 4 and 8, advertising a gambling service to the public in Brunei would be at serious legal risk.
Position of players
Brunei is one of the jurisdictions in which the player, not only the organiser, commits an offence. Under Chapter 28:
- playing in a common gaming house is an offence (section 6), and anyone found there during a police raid is presumed to have been playing;
- gaming in any public place is an offence (section 7), and the police may arrest without a warrant; and
- staking money on a public lottery or buying a lottery ticket is an offence (section 9), whether the lottery is run in Brunei or abroad.
Prosecutions of ordinary participants are documented. Following an October 2018 raid on a home in Tutong district, where people were betting on the dice game katam-katam, the house owner was fined B$5,000 and ten other local participants were each fined B$1,500, with a term of imprisonment in default of payment, according to Asia Times. Raids can detain large numbers of participants: on 31 May 2026 the gambling suppression unit detained 34 people, aged 32 to 84, at premises in Kampong Sungai Tilong where pai gow and lami were being played, and seized B$43,192.77 in cash (The Star / Borneo Bulletin, 2 June 2026).
For online play the position is less clear-cut. The official AITI table treats online gambling as an offence under Chapter 28, and the lottery provisions apply to lotteries managed outside Brunei. However, we found no reported prosecution of an individual solely for gambling from home on a foreign website, and no court decision on how the “common gaming house” concept applies to a private device. What can be said with confidence is that online gambling is not lawful in Brunei, that the authorities consider it covered by Chapter 28, and that individual players are exposed to prosecution under the Act’s player offences. The Act makes no exception for gambling among family or friends at home, so private social games for money are not protected as they are in some neighbouring countries.
Taxation
Because there is no lawful gambling market, Brunei has no gambling duty, betting tax or casino tax. Brunei also “does not impose personal income tax on individuals” (PwC, Worldwide Tax Summaries: Brunei Darussalam), so there is no tax on winnings as such. This does not make winnings lawful: money and instruments of gaming can be seized under Chapter 28, and the proceeds of unlawful gambling may also be subject to criminal asset recovery.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Because gambling is prohibited rather than regulated, Brunei has none of the consumer-protection tools found in licensing systems: no operator duties of care, no deposit or loss limits, no age-verification rules and no complaints body. We could not identify a national self-exclusion scheme or a dedicated gambling helpline. People in Brunei who are affected by gambling, either their own or a relative’s, can seek help through general health and counselling services; the Royal Brunei Police Force has also asked the public to report gambling to the nearest police station or its hotline (European Gaming, 15 May 2018).
Anyone using foreign gambling websites from Brunei should be aware that they have no local legal protection if an operator refuses to pay, closes an account or misuses personal data. General guidance on recognising and managing gambling harm is available in our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
- Claw machine ban (March 2024). In March 2024 the Minister of Home Affairs, Dato Seri Setia Awang Ahmaddin Abdul Rahman, described claw machines as “haram” because of their gambling elements, directed operators to cease their activities, and said that the ministry would issue notices terminating operators’ licences under the Public Entertainment Act (Chapter 181). The decision followed a fatwa issued by the State Mufti’s Office on 18 December 2023 and concerns raised in the Legislative Council (AGBrief, 17 March 2024; SiGMA News, 18 March 2024).
- Continued raids (2024–2026). In April 2024 police in Tutong district detained ten locals and foreign nationals over cockfighting and katam-katam gambling, seizing chickens, gaming equipment and cash (The Star, 24 April 2024). The 31 May 2026 raid in Kampong Sungai Tilong, with 34 detentions, was among the largest reported recently (The Star, 2 June 2026).
- No reform pending. We found no bill, consultation or official statement proposing to license or legalise any form of gambling. The direction of policy, as shown by the claw machine ban, is towards wider restriction rather than liberalisation.
Casino listings for players in Brunei
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database and do not show that any operator is licensed in Brunei. Brunei has no gambling licensing regime and no regulator register: offering online casino games to people in Brunei is prohibited, and gambling, including playing in a gaming house and buying lottery tickets, is an offence under the Common Gaming Houses Act (Chapter 28). The listings must not be read as an indication that playing is lawful.
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Sources and further reading
- Attorney General’s Chambers, Brunei Darussalam, Laws of Brunei, Chapter 28: Common Gaming Houses (Revised Edition 2002) (accessed 7 October 2026).
- ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly Legal Network, Common Gaming Houses Act, Chapter 28 (Revised Edition 2019) (accessed 7 October 2026).
- Attorney General’s Chambers, Brunei Darussalam, Laws of Brunei: Brunei Law Revision Order (B.L.R.O.) of revised text (accessed 7 October 2026).
- Government of Brunei Darussalam, Syariah Penal Code Order, 2013, Government Gazette, 22 October 2013, English text hosted by the International Commission of Jurists (accessed 7 October 2026).
- ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly Legal Network, Syariah Penal Code Order, 2013 (incorporating amendments to S 35/2018) (accessed 7 October 2026).
- Rozaiman Abdul Rahman, Conventus Law, Enforcement of Syariah Laws in Brunei Darussalam (2019).
- United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Factsheet: Brunei (2020).
- Constitute Project, Brunei Darussalam’s Constitution of 1959 with Amendments through 2006 (accessed 7 October 2026).
- Authority for Info-communications Technology Industry of Brunei Darussalam, Table of National Laws for Online Content (accessed 7 October 2026).
- PwC, Worldwide Tax Summaries: Brunei Darussalam, Individual, Taxes on personal income (accessed 7 October 2026).
- AGBrief, Brunei bans claw machines for fear of gambling elements (2024).
- SiGMA News, Claw machines banned in Brunei over gambling concerns (2024).
- The Star (Borneo Bulletin), Brunei gambling raid nets 34 suspects (2026).
- The Star, Brunei police crack down on Tutong gambling ring (2024).
- Asia Times, Police arrest 13 for gambling in Brunei (2018).
- European Gaming, Seven foreigners and five locals detained in gambling raid (2018).
- The Borneo Post, Public servants detained over computer gambling (2012).
