Legal casino gambling age in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG) permits gambling only in forms authorised under the Gaming Control Act 2007, which is administered by the National Gaming Control Board (NGCB). In practice the lawful market consists of gaming machines (known locally as “pokies”), licensed betting, lotteries and, on paper, casinos. Although the 2007 Act was reported at the time as opening the way to casinos and internet gambling, no casino had opened by October 2026 and no domestic online casino licensing regime was in operation. Any game not authorised by the Act is unlawful. A replacement law, the Gaming Control Bill, has been in preparation since at least 2021 and was the subject of a government consultation in August 2025.
Key points
- The Gaming Control Act 2007 (No. 2 of 2007) is the principal statute. It provides that a game not authorised by or under the Act is an “unlawful game”.
- The NGCB, a statutory body corporate, licenses and supervises casinos, gaming machines, bookmakers and lotteries, and has a statutory role in researching problem gambling.
- No casino operated in PNG as of October 2026. The Pacific Pearl project at the Paga Hill Special Economic Zone in Port Moresby was reported in August 2026 to be awaiting a licence.
- There is no published domestic licensing scheme for online casinos and no documented website-blocking regime. Reform of online gaming is part of the pending Gaming Control Bill.
- The Act sets casino duty at 20% of taxable profit, plus a 5% community benefit levy and a 5% gaming levy. Its table of contents also lists provisions barring minors from gambling.
Last reviewed: 8 October 2026.
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Historical development
Gambling arrived in what is now Papua New Guinea with colonisation, plantations and indentured labour. The anthropologist Anthony Pickles, in a chapter based on fifteen months of fieldwork in the Highlands town of Goroka in 2009–2010, notes that gambling was made illegal in 1907 and that most forms remained illegal through independence in 1975. Card games were, and remain, the most widespread form of gambling; during his fieldwork Pickles recorded that 73% of people over 16 in Goroka gambled, mostly illegally and mostly at cards (Pickles, 2013). These figures come from one town and should not be read as a national prevalence estimate.
Commercial machine gambling was legalised by the Gaming Machine Act 1993 (No. 24 of 1993). Section 3 of that Act established the National Gaming Control Board, and section 34(3) required the Board to ensure that no more than three gaming machine operator’s licences were in force at any one time. Rather than setting a separate tax rate, the 1993 Act prescribed how monthly gaming machine profits were to be divided between operators, permit holders, provincial or National Capital District trust accounts and a Department of Finance trust account. It also required machines to return at least 85% of turnover as prizes, and barred people under 18 from gaming machine areas.
In 2007 the government of Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare introduced a comprehensive gaming law. Trade press at the time reported that Parliament passed it unanimously, 61 votes to 0, and that it would permit casinos, overseas lottery products and internet gambling, with casino licences of ten years (Intergame, May 2007). The law was strongly opposed by church and women’s groups. Radio New Zealand reported that the then Governor-General, Sir Paulias Matane, urged its repeal, saying poker machines and other gambling had “driven many families into poverty”, and that the law was intended to clear the way for a South Korean consortium to build a hotel and casino in Port Moresby (RNZ, undated, c. 2007–2008).
In 2009 the NGCB’s then chief executive acknowledged that when gaming was introduced there were “no proper measures taken into consideration, only the revenue bit” (RNZ, June 2009). In 2010 church and women leaders objected to an SMS-based lottery licensed by the NGCB; the same report records that horse-race machines had been removed following a court order (The National, November 2010).
The casino question resurfaced in May 2021, when the NGCB signed an agreement with Paga Hill Development Company for a casino at Paga Hill in central Port Moresby, with the first phase estimated at a minimum of K150 million and the NGCB to receive a “free carried equity” stake (The National, 31 May 2021). Transparency International PNG criticised the arrangement, arguing that by partnering with the developer the NGCB was “seriously undermining its independence as the industry regulator” and should act as referee rather than participant (TIPNG, 1 June 2021).
Legal framework
The Gaming Control Act 2007
The Gaming Control Act 2007 (No. 2 of 2007) was certified on 8 June 2007 and comes into operation by notice in the National Gazette. Its objects, set out in section 2, are to promote probity and integrity in gaming, to promote fairness, integrity and efficiency in the operations of persons engaged in gaming, “to reduce any adverse social impact of gaming”, and to promote a balanced contribution by the gaming industry to community benefit.
The Act takes a permissive-by-authorisation approach. Section 4(1) provides that “a game authorized by or under this Act is a lawful game”, and section 5(1) that “a game that is not authorised by this Act is an unlawful game”. Section 5(2) gives roulette, baccarat and two-up as examples of games that are unlawful unless played as part of an approved game. The Act is divided into ten Parts:
- Part II: the National Gaming Control Board, its chief executive and registers;
- Part III: casinos, including licensing, supervision of operators, exclusion orders, inspectors, casino duty and levies, and accounting controls;
- Part IV: gaming machines, including permits, operator and technician licences, distribution of profits and betting tax;
- Part VI: bookmaking, including bookmaker and betting premises licences and turnover tax;
- Part VII: lotteries and “overseas lottery and gaming products”;
- Part VIII: other gaming and wagering, such as calcuttas, sweepstakes and bingo, and offences relating to unlawful gaming; and
- Parts IX and X: miscellaneous, transitional and savings provisions.
Section 3 defines an “overseas lottery or gaming product” as a lottery or other form of gaming that is operated or played in another country, and the definition extends to products made available in PNG through agents or the internet. The Act therefore contemplates foreign and internet-delivered products, and the table of contents lists a section headed “Overseas lottery products and internet gambling” (section 236) in Part VII. The text of that section could not be read online for this guide, so its conditions are not described here, and we have not found any published list of overseas or online products approved under it.
Amendments and related legislation
The Act has been amended through budget legislation. The Gaming Control (2013 Budget) (Amendment) Act 2012 (No. 16 of 2012), made on 27 November 2012 with effect from 1 January 2013, repealed paragraph (b) of section 211(1), a provision in the bookmaking Part concerned with the imposition of tax. Earlier, the gaming machine regime had been adjusted by measures such as the Gaming Machine (2004 Budget Provisions Amendment) Act 2003, which defined “taxable gross profit” for the purposes of betting tax on gaming machines. A consolidated, up-to-date text of the 2007 Act incorporating all amendments was not available on PacLII at the time of review.
Regulator and licensing model
PNG operates a licensing model: gambling is lawful only where the activity, operator and, in many cases, the premises or machine are authorised by the NGCB under the Act. The Board is a body corporate under section 7. Its functions include supervising casinos, considering licence applications and conducting research and education on problem gambling. Section 11 provides for ten members: a chairman, nominees of the PNG Council of Churches, the PNG Chamber of Commerce, the National Council of Women and the Trade Union Congress, an industry representative, and the departmental heads responsible for finance, justice, planning and monitoring, and social welfare.
The main forms of authorisation under the Act are:
- casino licences, each covering one casino and valid for ten years. Section 40 allowed the National Executive Council to set the number of licences, with no more than one in the first ten years after commencement;
- gaming machine permits for venues, and operator’s and technician’s licences;
- bookmaker’s and betting premises licences; and
- approval of lotteries and other games by the Board.
In July 2026 police and the NGCB described the Act as authorising four forms of gambling: casinos, gaming machines, sports betting, and lotteries including bingo (NBC News, 22 July 2026). In June 2024 The National reported that Lotto PNG, operated by 321 Group, had been licensed by the NGCB as the national lottery and would sell tickets through Post PNG outlets as well as through online jackpot games and instant scratch products (The National, 27 June 2024). We could not find a public register of licensees published by the NGCB.
The Board’s governance has been questioned. Transparency International PNG cited Auditor-General reports stating that the NGCB had not submitted financial statements since 2017 and that about K50 million paid from its Community Benefit Fund in 2015 lacked acquittals or detailed reports (TIPNG, 11 June 2021). In December 2022 the minister responsible for the NGCB, Manasseh Makiba, said the Board generated more than K55 million a month, of which 55% went to the government as tax through the Internal Revenue Commission, and set it a target of K2 billion in annual gaming revenue (EMTV, December 2022). These figures were ministerial statements and have not been independently verified here.
Online gambling and enforcement
The status of online gambling in PNG is unsettled. Contemporary reports in 2007 described the new Act as legalising internet gambling, and a presentation at the 2025 PNG Update conference repeats that the Gaming Control Bill 2007 “allows casinos and internet gambling”, citing earlier work (Jazmin-Rayel et al., 2025). In practice, however, no domestic online casino has been licensed, and official statements since then treat online gaming as something still to be regulated:
- In 2009 the NGCB was reported to be taking steps to oversee internet-based gambling (RNZ, June 2009).
- In May 2021 the NGCB chairman said that lotteries were “next in line” and that the Board would be “looking at legalising Bingo, online betting and the list of gaming in this country” (The National, 31 May 2021).
- In December 2022 the minister said the Gaming Control Bill 2021, then under review, was intended to regulate casinos, online gaming, sports betting and lotteries (EMTV, December 2022).
- In August 2025 the National ICT Authority (NICTA), attending the NGCB’s consultation on the Gaming Control Bill 2025, called for cybersecurity safeguards and protections for vulnerable people who play online, and said a memorandum of understanding with the NGCB on licensing, compliance and cybercrime was in progress (NICTA, 30 August 2025).
The licensed national lottery sells some products online. Beyond that, the most defensible reading of the sources is that offering online casino games to people in PNG requires NGCB authorisation that, so far as can be established, has not been granted to any operator.
We found no evidence of blocking, meaning orders requiring internet service providers or payment institutions to prevent access to, or payments to, unlicensed gambling sites, nor of a published blacklist of foreign operators. Enforcement has instead focused on unlicensed land-based gambling. The NGCB has run public awareness campaigns on illegal gambling since 2019, warning that games such as Hi-Lo, card games and bingo are unlawful (EMTV, April 2023). In July 2026 a joint police and NGCB operation in Western Highlands and Jiwaka provinces led to 65 arrests and the seizure of gambling machines, phones and tablets used for unlicensed High-Low and Ludo games. Police stated that unlicensed gambling carries penalties of K5,000 or up to 12 months’ imprisonment for individuals and K10,000 or up to 12 months for companies (NBC News, 22 July 2026).
Position of players
The Act targets both those who run and those who take part in unlawful games. Its table of contents lists a section headed “Playing at unlawful game” (section 246), alongside offences for operating unlawful games, cheating and prohibited persons gambling in a casino. The table of contents also lists sections headed “Minors not permitted to play games” (section 258) and “Persons under 18 years not permitted to enter licensed premises” (section 224, in the bookmaking Part). Their operative text could not be read online. The 2026 enforcement operation described above resulted in the arrest of vendors and operators rather than ordinary participants, according to police.
Whether a PNG resident who plays at an offshore online casino commits an offence has not, so far as we could find, been tested. In principle, a game that is not authorised under the Act is unlawful, and an offshore online casino is not authorised by the NGCB. However, we found no reported prosecution of an individual for gambling online with a foreign operator, and no official guidance addressing the point directly.
For casinos, the Act provides for exclusion orders. Under the exclusion provisions that follow section 87, a person subject to an exclusion order who enters or remains in the casino covered by the order commits an offence punishable by a fine of up to K10,000, imprisonment for up to two years, or both.
Taxation
Gambling taxation in PNG falls on operators. The Gaming Control Act imposes the following on casinos, each of which may instead be fixed by the Head of State, acting on advice, by notice in the National Gazette:
- casino duty of 20% of taxable profit for each calendar month;
- a community benefit levy of 5% of taxable gross profit for each month; and
- a gaming levy of 5% of taxable gross profit for each month.
These levies are broadly consistent with the 30% of gaming revenue that, according to the developer of the Paga Hill project, goes to the government through the NGCB, including the community benefit levy for social programmes (Paga Hill Development Company, October 2024).
The Act’s table of contents lists sections on the distribution of gaming machine profits and a betting tax in Part IV, and on the imposition of a turnover tax on bookmakers in Part VI; the text of those sections could not be read online. PwC’s tax summary confirms only that PNG “imposes a range of taxes on gaming machines and on other games of chance” (PwC, accessed 8 October 2026). The current gaming machine and bookmaker rates could not be verified from the published text for this guide.
We found no provision taxing players’ gambling winnings as such in the sources reviewed. Players with questions about their own tax position should consult the Internal Revenue Commission.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Reducing “any adverse social impact of gaming” is one of the Act’s statutory objects, and the NGCB has functions in research and education on problem gambling. The tools found in the law and in practice are limited compared with more developed markets:
- Age limits: the 2007 Act’s table of contents lists sections barring minors from playing games and under-18s from licensed bookmaker premises; under the 1993 regime, under-18s were barred from gaming machine areas.
- Casino exclusion orders: the Act provides for exclusion of persons from a casino and makes entry by an excluded person an offence.
- Restricted casino access: the Paga Hill developer stated in 2024 that the planned satellite casino would be for foreign nationals, with passports required and a high entry fee for locals modelled on Singapore (PHDC, 2024). Prime Minister James Marape said it would serve overseas guests, tourists and high-earning locals (Islands Business, 16 October 2024). These are project statements, not statutory rules.
- Community benefit funding: the community benefit levy funds grants and social programmes, although audit concerns about acquittal have been raised.
- Stakeholder consultation: in 2021 the NGCB set up a community consultation taskforce, inviting churches and others to advise on the social impact of gaming (The National, 29 June 2021).
We could not identify a national self-exclusion register covering all gambling, or a dedicated national gambling helpline; an international helpline directory lists none for PNG (Find A Helpline, accessed 8 October 2026). General guidance is available in our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
- Gaming Control Bill (2021–2025). A replacement for the 2007 Act was described as under review in December 2022. In August 2025 the NGCB held a consultation workshop in Goroka on the Gaming Control Bill 2025 attended by NICTA, the Internal Revenue Commission, Treasury, the Bank of PNG’s Financial Analysis and Supervision Unit and other agencies, to inform drafting instructions. As of October 2026 we found no report that the Bill had been tabled in Parliament.
- Paga Hill casino. Construction of a “satellite” casino in the Paga Hill Special Economic Zone began with a groundbreaking on 11 October 2024, attended by Prime Minister Marape (PM and NEC, 15 October 2024). The developer described it as a temporary venue of up to five years to test the market ahead of a permanent integrated resort.
- Pacific Pearl licensing (2026). In August 2026 trade press reported that the Pacific Pearl casino, planned to have about 100 gaming machines and 20 tables once fully operational, was recruiting staff and hoped to open later in 2026, but that it was still pending a licence (Inside Asian Gaming, 26 August 2026). We found no later report of a licence being granted or of the casino opening by 8 October 2026. If licensed, it would be PNG’s first casino.
Casino listings for players in Papua New Guinea
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is licensed in Papua New Guinea: no online casino holds an NGCB licence, and games not authorised under the Gaming Control Act 2007 are unlawful. The listings must not be read as an indication that playing is lawful. The NGCB does not publish an online register of licensees, so readers should seek confirmation from the Board directly.
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Sources and further reading
- PacLII, Gaming Control Act 2007 (No. 2 of 2007) (accessed 8 October 2026).
- PacLII, Gaming Control (2013 Budget) (Amendment) Act 2012 (No. 16 of 2012) (accessed 8 October 2026).
- PacLII, Gaming Machine Act 1993 (No. 24 of 1993) (accessed 8 October 2026).
- PacLII, Gaming Machine (2004 Budget Provisions Amendment) Act 2003 (No. 18 of 2003) (accessed 8 October 2026).
- National ICT Authority, Universal Access and Service Secretariat, Consultation Workshop: Gaming Control Bill 2025 (2025).
- Office of the Prime Minister and NEC, Prime Minister Marape Champions Port Moresby as Gateway to Modernisation and Asian Markets (2024).
- Paga Hill Development Company, Press Release: Joint Statement on the Satellite Casino Groundbreaking (2024).
- Transparency International PNG, Paga Hill Casino Deal May Lead to Weakening of Regulator’s Role (2021).
- Transparency International PNG, Proposed Casino Deal a Serious Concern Given Track Record of NGCB (2021).
- Pickles, A. J., “One-Man One-Man”: How Slot-Machines Facilitate Papua New Guineans’ Shifting Relations to Each Other, in C. Loussouarn (ed.), Qualitative Research in Gambling, Routledge (2013).
- Jazmin-Rayel, J. et al., Balancing Bets and Culture: Perceptions of Casino Tourism in Papua New Guinea at 50 Years of Independence, 2025 PNG Update (2025).
- NBC News, Operation “Rausim Illegal Gambling” Nets 65 Arrests in WHP and Jiwaka (2026).
- EMTV Online, Minister Makiba Challenged NGCB to Collect Revenue of K2 Billion Annually (2022).
- EMTV Online, Need for Game Monitoring and Regulations (2023).
- The National, Approval to Build Casino (2021).
- The National, NGCB Sets Up Taskforce (2021).
- The National, Post PNG Partners with Lotto PNG (2024).
- The National, Phone Gambling Gets Somare’s Attention (2010).
- Islands Business, Casino to Drive PNG’s Next Wave of Development: Marape (2024).
- Inside Asian Gaming, Investment Group on Verge of Opening Papua New Guinea’s First Casino in Port Moresby (2026).
- Radio New Zealand, PNG Governor-General Urges Repeal of Casino and Gambling Law (undated, c. 2007–2008).
- Radio New Zealand, PNG Gaming Authorities Defend Protection Measures (2009).
- Intergame, Papua New Guinea Legalises Online Gambling (2007).
- PwC, Papua New Guinea: Corporate, Other Taxes (accessed 8 October 2026).
- Find A Helpline, Gambling Helplines in Papua New Guinea (accessed 8 October 2026).
