Legal casino gambling age in MongoliaMongolia is one of the most restrictive gambling jurisdictions in Asia. Casinos are illegal, and every attempt since the late 1990s to legalise them, usually as resorts closed to Mongolian citizens, has either been annulled or has stalled in Parliament. Organising gambling is a criminal offence, and playing in public places is an administrative infringement. On 30 May 2025 the State Great Khural (Parliament) went further. In a package of ten laws amending the permits law, the Criminal Code and other statutes, it prohibited paid prediction games, betting games and online gambling outright, with effect from 1 July 2025. The only regulated form of gambling we could identify is the property and money lottery licensed by the Ministry of Finance, and sources on its current status are thin. There is no lawful online casino market for residents.
Key points
- Since 1 July 2025, Article 1.5.20 of the consolidated permits law on the official Legalinfo portal provides that operating paid prediction games, betting games and online gambling “is prohibited”.
- Organising gambling is a crime under Article 20.17 of the Criminal Code. The 2025 reform added Article 20.18 on organising paid prediction and betting games and Article 20.19 on supplying bank accounts, e-money, virtual assets or phone numbers to such schemes.
- Players are not the main target of criminal law, but playing gambling games in public places is an administrative infringement punishable by a fine and confiscation, and the police have stated that taking part in online gambling also attracts liability.
- Attempts to legalise casinos, latterly as venues closed to Mongolian citizens, were made in 1998, 2007, 2009, 2015 and 2022–2023. A 1998 casino law was annulled in 1999, and none of the later bills was adopted.
- The Communications Regulatory Commission blocks gambling websites, banks freeze accounts used by illegal operators, and advertising of the prohibited activities is fined under the Law on Infringements.
- We found no national self-exclusion scheme and no dedicated gambling helpline.
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.
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Historical development
Gambling policy in post-socialist Mongolia has been shaped by a recurring debate about casinos. According to a detailed timeline published by Polit.mn in October 2020, Parliament passed a law on casinos on 15 January 1998. A tender followed, but three members of Parliament and the director of the winning company then faced bribery charges. On 22 January 1999 Parliament annulled the law, with members arguing that casinos would bring crime and narcotics and pose a risk to national security. The newsletter Inside Mongolia gives the same account: the 1998 law was revoked after a bribery scandal and replaced by an outright ban on casino operations.
Later attempts followed the same pattern. Polit.mn records bills for a limited casino regime in 2007 and 2009. Both were dropped amid allegations that they were tied to particular development projects. In 2014–2015, with the economy slowing, the idea returned. On 12 February 2015 the Cabinet approved a draft law for two casinos that would admit only foreign visitors. CalvinAyre.com reported at the time that the bill targeted visitors from China, Russia and Japan and that an area near the new international airport outside Ulaanbaatar had been suggested. The bill was never passed. On 8 October 2020 the newly elected Parliament returned it to the Government without consideration (Polit.mn).
In April 2019, while that bill was still pending, the Government prohibited its employees from gambling in casinos in Mongolia or abroad, on pain of dismissal. GGRAsia, citing Xinhua, reported that officials, including senior staff of state-owned companies, had been caught gambling in foreign casinos, and noted that Mongolia had no legal casinos at the time.
The most recent casino initiative came in 2022–2023 and is described under Regulator and licensing model. Its failure was followed in 2025 by a change of direction: instead of licensing gambling, Parliament banned the remaining forms of betting and online gambling.
Legal framework
Mongolian legislation is published on Legalinfo, the unified legal information portal. Its pages render only part of long statutes in a form we could read, so for some provisions below we rely on official secondary sources, namely the Bank of Mongolia’s Financial Information Unit (FIU) and the police, and on the Mongolian press. Each claim is attributed. No single “gambling act” exists. The rules are spread across several laws:
- Permits law. The consolidated permits law on Legalinfo, which the portal titles the Law on Permits and Notifications and dates 17 June 2022, contains the core prohibition. Article 1.5.20 reads: “Operating paid prediction [tulburt taavar], betting games and online gambling activities is prohibited” (Legalinfo). The FIU states that this amendment was adopted on 30 May 2025 and has applied since 1 July 2025 (FIU). Before then, paid prediction and betting were in principle licensable activities. The FIU’s 2022 typology report states that the earlier Law on Special Permits for Business Activities (Article 15.5.7) required a special permit from the ministry responsible for legal affairs, but that no business held an active permit for these activities (FIU typology report, 2022).
- Criminal Code. The Criminal Code of 3 December 2015 is on Legalinfo, but we could not read its special part there. According to the FIU’s 2022 report, Article 20.17, “Organising gambling”, punishes organising gambling through information technology or in public places with a fine of MNT 450,000 to 14,000,000, 240 to 720 hours of community service, or restriction of liberty or imprisonment for six months to three years. Setting up or running an illegal gambling establishment carries a fine of MNT 5.4 to 27 million or one to five years’ restriction of liberty or imprisonment. Under Article 18.6, possessing, using or transferring proceeds of illegal gambling is money laundering. The National Police Agency cited the same articles in November 2021.
- New Articles 20.18 and 20.19 (2025). As reported by iSee.mn and Zuv.mn in July 2025, Article 20.18 punishes organising paid prediction or betting games for profit, in public places or using information technology. The penalty is a fine of 2,700 to 14,000 units, 240 to 720 hours of community service, or restriction of liberty or imprisonment of six months to three years. Article 20.19 punishes repeatedly supplying payment accounts, electronic money, virtual assets, telephone numbers or digital identifiers to such schemes. It carries a fine of 450 to about 5,000 units, community service, or restriction of liberty or imprisonment of six months to one year. A “unit” is the Criminal Code’s unit of account. The FIU’s 2022 report expresses the comparable fines under Article 20.17 as MNT 450,000 to 14 million, which implies that one unit equals MNT 1,000. Reports differ on the exact upper limit for Article 20.19 (5,004 or 5,400 units), and we could not check the official text.
- Law on Infringements. The Law on Infringements (revised 11 May 2017, on Legalinfo) deals with minor offences. A 2023 legal explainer by DMS states that playing gambling games in public places is punished by confiscation of the items used and a fine of 100 units. The 2025 reform added parts 6 and 7 to Article 10.1 on promoting the prohibited activities (see Online gambling).
- Civil Code. The DMS explainer also notes that under the Civil Code games and bets do not create enforceable claims, so neither a gambling debt nor a stake lost can be recovered through the courts. We could not read the article itself on Legalinfo.
- Lotteries. According to the FIU’s 2022 report, the Ministry of Finance issues special permits for “property and money lotteries” and publishes the list of authorised operators. We did not find a separate statute titled “Law on Lotteries” or a law on a gambling tax in force in the sources we could read. Both may exist in older legislation, but we could not verify them.
Regulator and licensing model
Mongolia follows a prohibition model: casinos, betting and online gambling cannot be licensed, and the law treats their organisation as a crime. There is no dedicated gambling regulator. Enforcement is shared by the National Police Agency, the prosecutor’s office, the Bank of Mongolia’s FIU and the Communications Regulatory Commission (CRC). Lottery permits sit with the Ministry of Finance, according to the FIU. We could not find a current published list of licensed lottery operators, or confirm whether any lottery permits remain in force after the 2025 reform.
State lottery. We found no evidence of a national state lottery comparable to those in other countries.
The 2022–2023 casino and betting bills. In July 2022 the Minister of Justice and Home Affairs, Kh. Nyambaatar, told Parliament that a casino law would bar Mongolian citizens and minors from the gaming areas of casino complexes (Arslan.mn). In late November 2022 the Government decided to submit a package of bills: a Law on Casinos, a Law on Betting Prediction and Prize Lotteries, and a Law on Betting Horse Racing (UBN). According to reports of the drafts:
- casino licences would run for 30 years, extendable by ten, for a fee of MNT 1 billion, and players’ winnings would be exempt from personal income tax (UBN, January 2023);
- Mongolian citizens caught gambling in a casino would forfeit their winnings and pay a fine (UBN);
- operators would have to invest at least USD 300 million, and the state would take 40% of gaming revenue (Mongolia Weekly; News.mn);
- casinos would be confined to the free economic zone in the Khöshig Valley, where Mongolia’s new international airport is located; Mongolia Weekly likewise links the plan to a free trade zone around the airport (Zindaa; Eagle);
- betting operators would need MNT 1 billion in capital, prize lotteries MNT 500 million, and at least 55% of lottery ticket revenue would go to prizes. Under-18s would be excluded from all activities (Zindaa);
- a non-profit horse racing association would run betting on races at dedicated tracks (Zindaa).
On 18 January 2023 Parliament’s Standing Committee on Legal Affairs agreed to discuss all the bills, with 54.5% of members voting for the casino bill (Zindaa). One member questioned whether barring citizens from casinos was compatible with the Constitution (Eagle). The casino and horse racing bills were on the agenda of the spring 2023 session (Arslan.mn). News.mn reported in August 2023 that the session had closed without adopting the casino law, amid corruption investigations and criticism of the 40% tax rate. We found no evidence that any of the bills was later passed. The outcome for the horse racing bill is not documented in the sources we reviewed, so betting on horse racing (including traditional Naadam races) has no legal framework that we could verify.
Online gambling: what is permitted and how it is enforced
No form of online gambling is lawful. Article 1.5.20 of the permits law prohibits online gambling, betting games and paid prediction games (Legalinfo). There is no licence that an operator, domestic or foreign, could obtain. Offshore websites that accept Mongolian players operate illegally, and organising or assisting them falls under Articles 20.17 to 20.19 of the Criminal Code.
The scale of illegal play has been large. According to DMS, registered gambling-related cases rose from 56 in 2020 to 326 in 2021. Announcing the 2025 reform, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nyam-Osor Uchral said financial investigation data showed that about EUR 540 million had been transferred abroad (Focus Gaming News). The police put the outflow at about MNT 1.7 trillion (Zuv.mn). These are official estimates that we could not check independently.
Enforcement uses four tools:
- Website blocking. In a coordinated operation reported in November 2021, the police, the FIU and the CRC blocked access to 132 gambling websites and restricted 132 bank accounts, freezing MNT 1.5 billion (National Police Agency; FIU). Ikon.mn reported that 6,140 web addresses were blocked in 2024.
- Payment controls. Banks report suspicious transactions to the FIU. Its 2022 report found that four commercial banks regularly processed payments linked to illegal online gambling, and that at one bank 86% of suspicious transaction reports concerned online gambling. Article 20.19 now criminalises lending accounts, e-wallets, virtual assets or phone numbers to operators.
- Criminal prosecution. Ikon.mn, citing police data, reported 48 crimes of organising gambling in 2024 and 16 in the first five months of 2025, with damage of MNT 924 million, plus 92 infringements in 2024 and 30 in early 2025.
- Advertising. The 2025 reform amended the Law on Advertising and added parts 6 and 7 to Article 10.1 of the Law on Infringements (Montsame). As reported by iSee.mn, promoting paid prediction, betting or online gambling is fined 5,000 units for individuals and 50,000 units for legal entities. Where the promotion is spread through the mass media or online networks, the fines are 10,000 and 100,000 units, and unlawful income is confiscated. Montsame adds that encouraging children and young people to take part is penalised.
Position of players
The position of players is less clear than that of operators, and sources differ in emphasis.
- Administrative liability. Playing gambling games in public places is an infringement punishable by confiscation and a fine, reported as 100 units (DMS). In November 2021 a senior police officer stated that “organising online gambling and taking part in it both attract legal liability”, the latter under the Law on Infringements (National Police Agency). UBN reported on 1 July 2025 that using a VPN to get around the ban does not avoid liability (UBN).
- Criminal liability. The criminal provisions we could identify (Articles 20.17 to 20.19) are aimed at organisers and those who lend accounts or numbers to them. A player who lets an operator use his or her bank account or e-wallet can therefore commit a crime under Article 20.19. We found no provision making ordinary participation a crime, and Yogonet likewise reported that the 2025 legislation does not impose direct penalties on players.
- Civil consequences. Because games and bets do not create enforceable claims, a player has no legal remedy against an operator that refuses to pay winnings (DMS).
Age limits. Because gambling is prohibited, there is no general statutory gambling age to apply. The 2023 bills proposed excluding persons under 18 (Zindaa), but they were not adopted. We could not verify an age limit for licensed lotteries.
Taxation
Operators
Before the 2025 ban, paid prediction and betting activities were subject to the Special Excise Tax Law. Instructions issued by the General Department of Taxation on 10 February 2023 (Order A/25) set out the excise return for these activities under Articles 6.4–6.5 and 8.9 of that law. The return calculates tax per gaming table or electronic wheel, slot machine, totalisator terminal and bookmaker centre (Legalinfo). The instructions do not state the amounts. The 2025 package amended the Excise Tax Law, the Corporate Income Tax Law and the Personal Income Tax Law (Montsame). According to AKIpress and Yogonet, these amendments repealed the excise tax on gambling equipment and the related income tax provisions, since the activities could no longer be carried on lawfully. We could not read the amending texts.
Players
According to PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries (last reviewed 8 June 2026), lottery winnings are taxed at 40% for both residents and non-residents. The same rate appears for net lottery income in PwC’s corporate summary. Income from illegal gambling has no special tax treatment. Under the Criminal Code, proceeds of illegal gambling are treated as the proceeds of crime and may be confiscated or prosecuted as money laundering (FIU).
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Because lawful gambling is almost entirely absent, Mongolia has none of the consumer protection tools found in licensing jurisdictions. We found no national self-exclusion register, no deposit or loss limits, and no regulator-run complaints procedure. Player protection works mainly through prohibition: blocking sites and payments, prosecuting organisers and fining promoters, especially those who target children and young people (Montsame).
Public warnings by the police describe the harms of online gambling as debt, family breakdown and, in some cases, suicide (Ikon.mn). We could not identify a dedicated national gambling helpline or a specialist treatment service from sources we were able to read. Readers in Mongolia who are worried about their gambling should consult general mental health and addiction services. Our responsible gambling guide sets out general steps for keeping gambling under control and recognising the warning signs.
Recent and upcoming developments
- 2022–2023: casino and betting bills. The Government submitted bills on casinos, betting and prize lotteries and betting horse racing. The Standing Committee on Legal Affairs agreed to discuss them on 18 January 2023, but the spring 2023 session closed without adopting the casino law (Zindaa; News.mn). We found no later progress.
- 30 May 2025: the prohibition package. Parliament adopted ten laws amending the permits law, the Criminal Code, the Law on Infringements, the Law on Advertising, three tax laws and the law on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (Montsame; Montsame, Mongolian edition). The FIU confirms that the amendments were published on 30 May 2025 and have applied since 1 July 2025 (FIU).
- July 2025: police guidance. On 19 July 2025 the police warned that organising, promoting and lending accounts to gambling sites are offences under the new rules (Zuv.mn).
- 2026. We found no new gambling legislation and no revival of the casino bills between January and early October 2026 in the sources available to us. Readers should check the Legalinfo portal and the Parliament website for later changes.
Casino listings for players in Mongolia
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not by themselves show that an operator is licensed in Mongolia, and none can be: Mongolia has no casino or online gambling licence, and Article 1.5.20 of the permits law prohibits online gambling and betting (Legalinfo). The listings must not be read as an indication that playing online casino games is lawful in Mongolia.
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Sources and further reading
- Mongolia, Legalinfo, Law on Permits and Notifications, consolidated text, Article 1.5.20 (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Mongolia, Legalinfo, Criminal Code of Mongolia (3 December 2015) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Mongolia, Legalinfo, Law on Infringements (revised, 11 May 2017) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- General Department of Taxation, via Legalinfo, Instructions for the excise tax return on paid prediction and betting games (Order A/25) (2023).
- Bank of Mongolia, Financial Information Unit, Amendments prohibiting paid prediction, betting and online gambling in force from 1 July 2025 (2025).
- Bank of Mongolia, Financial Information Unit, Typology report 2022: illegal online gambling (2022).
- National Police Agency of Mongolia, Organising and taking part in online gambling both attract legal liability (2021).
- Montsame, Mongolia bans online gambling, betting, and paid lotteries (2025).
- Montsame, Organising online gambling, betting games and paid prediction prohibited (2025, in Mongolian).
- iSee.mn, Organising betting games now carries criminal liability (2025, in Mongolian).
- Zuv.mn, Police: promoting, organising and lending accounts to online gambling are offences (2025, in Mongolian).
- UBN, Law fully banning online gambling in force from today (2025, in Mongolian).
- Ikon.mn, Warning: online gambling caused MNT 924 million in damage in the first five months of 2025 (2025, in Mongolian).
- DMS, Is gambling legal in Mongolia? (2023, in Mongolian).
- Polit.mn, The sixth attempt: a casino closed to Mongolians (2020, in Mongolian).
- UBN, Bills on casinos, betting prediction and prize lotteries, and betting horse racing to be submitted (2022, in Mongolian).
- UBN, Law on Casinos: MNT 1 billion licence fee, no income tax on players’ winnings (2023, in Mongolian).
- Zindaa, Committee supports discussing casino, betting race and lottery bills (2023, in Mongolian).
- News.mn, Has the plan to earn foreign currency from a casino failed? (2023, in Mongolian).
- Focus Gaming News, Mongolia bans online gambling (2025).
- AKIpress, Parliament of Mongolia bans online gambling, betting and paid prediction (2025).
- GGRAsia, Mongolia bans civil servants from gambling in casinos (2019).
- CalvinAyre.com, Mongolia to okay two foreigner-only casinos (2015).
- PwC, Mongolia: Individual – Taxes on personal income (last reviewed 8 June 2026).
- Inside Mongolia, Casino in Mongolia? (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Mongolia Weekly, Mongolia takes a gamble on legalizing casino to bring in tourists and boost economy (2023).
- Yogonet, Mongolia bans betting, online gambling, paid prediction activities (2025).
