Legal casino gambling age in TaiwanTaiwan follows a prohibition model with two statutory lottery monopolies. The Criminal Code makes gambling for money an offence and punishes running gambling venues for profit; since 2022 it has expressly covered gambling over the internet. The exceptions are the Public Welfare Lottery, supervised by the Ministry of Finance, and the Sports Lottery, which its issuer may also sell online. Casinos on the offshore islands have been possible in law since 2009, but only after a local referendum and under a separate gaming statute which, as far as we could find, has not been enacted. No casino operates in Taiwan, and no operator is licensed to offer online casino games.
Key points
- Article 266 of the Criminal Code punishes gambling for money in public places and, since the amendment promulgated on 12 January 2022, gambling by telecommunications, electronic communications, the internet or similar means. The maximum penalty is a fine of NT$50,000.
- Article 268 punishes providing a gambling venue or gathering people to gamble for profit with up to three years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to NT$90,000.
- Lawful gambling is limited to the Public Welfare Lottery (Ministry of Finance; CTBC Bank, 2024–2033) and the Sports Lottery (2024–2033 term issued by ADATA Technology). The sports lottery statute expressly permits internet sales by the issuer.
- Article 10-2 of the Offshore Islands Development Act (2009) allows casinos on outlying islands after a local referendum. Penghu voted no in 2009 and 2016 and Kinmen voted no in 2017. Matsu voted yes in 2012, but no casino has been licensed.
- Prize money from government lotteries is taxed separately by withholding at source under the Income Tax Act and is not added to the winner’s consolidated income.
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.
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Historical development
Gambling has long been a criminal matter in Taiwan. The Criminal Code’s gambling chapter dates from 1935, when Article 266 punished gambling in public places with a fine and Article 268 punished running a gambling venue for profit with up to three years’ imprisonment (Ministry of Justice, Article 266 history; Article 268 history). A separate offence of habitual gambling (Article 267) was deleted in 2005 (Article 267 history).
The state has also run lotteries for a long time. The Patriotic Lottery began in April 1950 to help fund military costs and was ended in December 1987. By then an illegal numbers game called dajiale (“Everybody Happy”), which used the lottery’s results, had spread across the island. After it closed, bettors moved to Hong Kong’s Mark Six numbers (Taipei Times, December 2017).
Lotteries came back under a new statute, the Public Welfare Lottery Issue Act, first promulgated on 5 July 1995 (Ministry of Finance law database). The Ministry of Finance lists the Bank of Taiwan as the first issuer (1999–2001), followed by Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (2002–2006) and CTBC Bank (from 2007) (National Treasury Administration). The Sports Lottery Issue Act, promulgated on 1 July 2009, gave sports betting its own legal basis (Ministry of Sports law database). Sports lottery sales began slightly earlier: the Sports Administration counts a first operating period of five years and eight months, followed by a ten-year term (Taipei Times, January 2025).
In January 2009 the Legislative Yuan amended the Offshore Islands Development Act to allow casinos on the outlying islands if local voters approved them in a referendum (Taipei Times, September 2009). The islands then voted four times, as described below. In 2019 the Ministry of Justice called the absence of a rule on internet gambling a “loophole” and proposed amending the Criminal Code (iGaming Business, 2019); the amendment was promulgated in January 2022.
Legal framework
Taiwan has no single gambling statute. The rules come from the general criminal law and from statutes that create specific exceptions.
Criminal Code: gambling offences
Chapter 21 of the Criminal Code, “Offences of Gambling”, contains the main provisions (consolidated text, Taipei City law database):
- Article 266(1) punishes anyone who gambles for property in a public place or a place open to the public with a fine of up to NT$50,000. Article 266(2), added in 2022, applies the same penalty to anyone who gambles for property “by telecommunications equipment, electronic communications, the internet or other similar means”. Gambling for items intended for temporary entertainment is excluded, and the Article provides for confiscation. The maximum fine was NT$30,000 under the version of 25 December 2019 and NT$50,000 from 12 January 2022 (Article 266 history).
- Article 267 (habitual gambling) has been deleted.
- Article 268 punishes anyone who, for profit, provides a place for gambling or gathers people to gamble, with up to three years’ imprisonment and an optional fine of up to NT$90,000 (Article 268 history).
- Article 269 punishes issuing lotteries or prize-savings schemes without authorisation (up to one year’s imprisonment or detention, and an optional fine of up to NT$90,000) and acting as an intermediary in their sale (up to six months’ imprisonment or a fine of up to NT$30,000).
The 2022 online gambling amendment
The amendment was a response to case law. According to the Taoyuan City Government, a 2018 Supreme Court decision (107 Tai-Fei No. 174) held that gambling on a password-protected website lacked the public element required by Article 266, because the accounts created a closed, private space (Taoyuan City Government, 2022). The Legislative Yuan passed the amendment at the end of 2021, and it added Article 266(2) and raised the fine (Liberty Times, July 2026; Ministry of Justice). Article 268 was not amended in 2022.
Lottery statutes
- Public Welfare Lottery Issue Act (1995, last amended 9 November 2016). The Ministry of Finance is the competent authority (Article 2). It designates a bank as issuer, and the bank may delegate issuing, sales and prize operations to another institution with the Ministry’s consent (Article 4). Prizes may not exceed 75% of ticket sales unless approved (Article 5), and tickets may not be sold to, nor prizes paid to, anyone under 18 (Article 9) (Ministry of Finance law database).
- Sports Lottery Issue Act (1 July 2009, last amended 2 July 2025). The lottery must be issued by a specialised issuer, either set up by the government or chosen by public selection (Article 4). The surplus must be used entirely for sports development (Article 8), and sales by telephone, internet and other telecommunications are permitted (Article 11). Prizes may not exceed 78% of sales (Article 6), and sales or prize payments to minors are prohibited (Article 13) (Ministry of Sports law database). We could not verify the content of the July 2025 amendment.
Offshore Islands Development Act
Article 10-2 of the Offshore Islands Development Act is the provision that governs casinos (Taipei Times, October 2017). Under the 2009 amendments, casinos may be established on Kinmen, Matsu and Penghu if more than 50% of voters in a local referendum agree (Taipei Times, February 2013). A referendum is only the first step. As a Matsu legislator noted after that island’s vote, the legislature must first pass a separate gaming act before a casino resort can be built (Taipei Times, July 2012). The 2016 Penghu reporting still described such legislation as a draft (Taipei Times, October 2016), and we found no record that it has since been enacted.
Casino referendums
Four referendums have been held under Article 10-2. Only Matsu, in Lienchiang County, voted in favour:
| Island (county) | Date | For | Against | Turnout | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Penghu | 26 September 2009 | 13,397 | 17,359 | about 42% | Rejected (Taipei Times) |
| Matsu (Lienchiang) | 7 July 2012 | 1,795 | 1,341 | 40.7% | Approved (Taipei Times) |
| Penghu | 15 October 2016 | 6,210 | 26,598 | 39.56% | Rejected (Taipei Times) |
| Kinmen | 28 October 2017 | 2,705 | 24,368 | 24.17% | Rejected (Taipei Times) |
The Matsu result did not lead to a casino: much of the land is government or military property, and a gaming act was still needed (Taipei Times, July 2012). In 2016 President Tsai Ing-wen said gambling was “not the only path” for Penghu’s tourism (Taipei Times, October 2016). Kinmen’s 2017 vote was an overwhelming rejection (Focus Taiwan, October 2017), after which campaigners called for Article 10-2 to be abolished (Taipei Times, October 2017).
Regulator and licensing model
Taiwan has no single gambling regulator and issues no gambling licences in the usual sense. Each lawful product has its own supervising ministry and a single issuer chosen by public selection for a fixed term: a set of statutory monopolies, in which one body has the exclusive legal right to offer each product.
Public Welfare Lottery
The Ministry of Finance selects the issuer, and its Public Welfare Lottery Supervising Committee oversees the use of the lottery surplus (National Treasury Administration). CTBC Bank, the issuer since 2007, was selected in August 2022 for a fifth term, 2024–2033, with its subsidiary Taiwan Lottery handling day-to-day operations (CTBC, August 2022). The surplus after prizes and costs is distributed 50% to local governments for social welfare, 45% to the national pension system and 5% to National Health Insurance (National Treasury Administration Q&A). The Act gives people with disabilities, indigenous people and low-income single parents priority as retailers (Public Welfare Lottery Issue Act). Sales were a record NT$162.5 billion in 2023 and NT$132.1 billion in 2024 (Ministry of Finance Statistical Bulletin, 2025).
Sports Lottery
Article 2 of the Sports Lottery Issue Act still names the Ministry of Education as the competent authority (Ministry of Sports law database; Taipei Times, January 2025). Sports policy passed to the new Ministry of Sports on 9 September 2025 (Executive Yuan, September 2025), which now publishes the Act and runs a sports lottery section on its website (Ministry of Sports law database; Ministry of Sports, Sports Lottery); a deputy minister of sports presented the issuer’s annual awards in January 2026 (Economic Daily News, January 2026). ADATA Technology, a memory-module maker, announced in December 2022 that it had won the issuing right again, for 2024–2033 (Anue/cnyes, December 2022).
Since a 2016 amendment, all sports lottery surplus has gone to the sports development fund. Sales reached a record NT$64.3 billion in 2024 (Taipei Times, January 2025). In 2025 they reached NT$71 billion, of which online betting accounted for 43% (Economic Daily News, January 2026).
Casinos
No casino licensing authority exists. A casino needs both local approval and a separate gaming statute (Taipei Times, July 2012), and we found no record that the statute has been enacted. Taiwan therefore has no lawful land-based casinos.
Online gambling: what is permitted and how it is enforced
The lawful online channel
The only online betting product with an express statutory basis is the Sports Lottery. Article 11 of the Sports Lottery Issue Act allows the issuer to sell by telephone, internet and other telecommunications, subject to data-security and fraud-prevention requirements, and Article 7 caps operating costs at 12% of retail sales and 10% of electronic sales (Sports Lottery Issue Act). In April 2022 the Executive Yuan approved a draft amendment that would, among other things, let retailers recruit members to the issuer’s online system and add virtual sports events as betting subjects (Sports Administration press release, April 2022); we could not confirm which proposals are now in force.
No statute authorises online casino games, online slot machines or online poker. These games fall under the general offences in Articles 266 and 268, and there is no licence that an operator, domestic or foreign, could obtain to offer them.
Offshore and illegal operators
Article 268, on providing a gambling venue for profit, is the main operator offence; we did not review how courts apply it to websites. Illegal online gambling is closely linked to money laundering. In March 2026 the Criminal Investigation Bureau announced a case involving about NT$33 billion in suspected proceeds of illegal internet gambling. The syndicate allegedly used agents to buy gaming chips with credit cards at Macau casinos and convert them into Hong Kong dollars. Twenty people were arrested, and officials described it as the first case of its kind (GGRAsia, March 2026). In 2024 officials and legislators acknowledged that the sports lottery faces strong competition from underground betting operations offering better odds and more betting options (Yahoo Sports Taiwan, October 2024).
Blocking, payments and advertising
We did not find a published statutory blocklist of gambling websites, a statutory duty on payment providers to block gambling transactions, or a gambling-specific advertising code. Enforcement relies mainly on criminal investigation under the Criminal Code and on anti-money-laundering cases.
Position of players
In Taiwan the player’s own online gambling is a criminal offence. Since January 2022, anyone who gambles for property by internet or similar means commits the offence in Article 266(2), punishable by a fine of up to NT$50,000 (Ministry of Justice). Before the amendment, courts often acquitted players who bet from private homes on password-protected sites (Taoyuan City Government).
At least one prosecution of a player has been reported. In July 2026 the Liberty Times reported that a man in Keelung had been fined NT$8,000 for betting on an online casino platform. A lawyer quoted in the report said that connecting to an illegal gambling website is now an offence even from a private home or a personal phone, and that a conviction leaves a criminal record (Liberty Times, July 2026). We found no official statistics on prosecutions of players.
The offence concerns gambling “for property”, and gambling for items intended only for temporary entertainment is excluded. Article 266 also provides for confiscation. Players with unlicensed operators have no regulatory complaints route and no legal protection for deposits or winnings. The lawful options for adults are the Public Welfare Lottery and the Sports Lottery, including the sports lottery’s own online channel. The lottery statutes bar sales and prize payments to under-18s (Public Welfare Lottery) and to minors (Sports Lottery).
Taxation
Operators
Taiwan has no gaming tax because it has no licensed casinos or online operators; the lotteries are governed by statutory allocation rules instead. Public Welfare Lottery prizes are capped at 75% of sales and the surplus goes to welfare, pensions and health insurance (Public Welfare Lottery Issue Act). CTBC Bank has also committed to pay NT$2.7 billion a year to the government whatever the results, and projected NT$40.9 billion in tax on winnings over 2024–2033 (CTBC, August 2022). Sports Lottery prizes are capped at 78% of sales, with the whole surplus going to sports development (Sports Lottery Issue Act).
Players
Article 14 of the Income Tax Act treats prizes from contests and games of chance as a category of taxable income (Category 8). Prize money from lotteries run by the government is treated differently: tax is withheld under Article 88, and the prize is not included in the winner’s gross consolidated income (Income Tax Act, Ministry of Finance). Other prize income falls within Category 8, from which necessary participation costs may be deducted. The withholding rate and threshold for lottery prizes are set in separate withholding regulations, which we could not access, so we do not state them here. Winnings from unlawful gambling have no legal protection and may be confiscated as part of criminal proceedings.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Consumer protection rests mainly on the lottery statutes: age limits (under-18s may not buy or claim lottery tickets), statutory caps on prize payouts, confidentiality of winners’ details and inspection powers for the supervising ministry (Public Welfare Lottery Issue Act; Sports Lottery Issue Act). The Public Welfare Lottery operator advises players to set a budget, bet only what they can afford, take part in other leisure activities and never borrow or act unlawfully to fund betting (Taiwan Lottery, responsible gaming page).
The operator lists a free problem-gambling helpline, 0800-366-176. It also points to general counselling lines, including the Teacher Chang Foundation (1980) and Lifeline (1995), and to counselling services run by Mackay Memorial Hospital and the John Tung Foundation (Taiwan Lottery). We did not find a national, statutory self-exclusion register covering both lotteries, and we could not verify the account-level tools available on the sports lottery’s online platform. General guidance is available in our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
- New lottery terms (January 2024). CTBC Bank began its fifth term as Public Welfare Lottery issuer and ADATA Technology began the 2024–2033 sports lottery term (CTBC, 2022; Anue/cnyes, 2022). Public Welfare Lottery sales fell to NT$132.1 billion in 2024 from a record in 2023 (Ministry of Finance, 2025).
- Record sports lottery sales (2024–2025). After NT$64.3 billion in 2024 and NT$71 billion in 2025, the issuer set a 2026 target of NT$85 billion (Taipei Times, 2025; Economic Daily News, 2026).
- Sports Lottery Issue Act amended (2 July 2025) and the Ministry of Sports established (9 September 2025). The Ministry now publishes the Act (Ministry of Sports law database; Executive Yuan). Article 2 still names the Ministry of Education, and we could not verify a formal transfer of competence.
- Enforcement against online gambling (2026). In March 2026 the Criminal Investigation Bureau announced the NT$33 billion money-laundering case linked to illegal internet gambling (GGRAsia, March 2026). In July 2026 the press reported a fine imposed on an individual online bettor under Article 266(2) (Liberty Times, July 2026).
- Casinos remain stalled. Since Kinmen’s 2017 vote, campaigners have called for Article 10-2 to be repealed (Taipei Times, 2017). We found no gaming bill enacted and no casino project licensed as of October 2026.
Casino listings for players in Taiwan
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not by themselves show that an operator is licensed or authorised in Taiwan. No operator can lawfully offer online casino games to people in Taiwan, and since 2022 gambling online for money is itself an offence for players under Article 266 of the Criminal Code. The listings must therefore not be read as an indication that playing with any listed operator is lawful in Taiwan. The only lawful online betting product is the state-authorised Sports Lottery.
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Sources and further reading
- Ministry of Justice, Criminal Code, Article 266: historical versions (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Ministry of Justice, Criminal Code, Article 267: historical versions (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Ministry of Justice, Criminal Code, Article 268: historical versions (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Taipei City Government, Laws and Regulations Database, Criminal Code, Chapter 21: Offences of Gambling (Articles 266–270) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Taoyuan City Government, Criminal Code amendment: the offence of gambling in the internet age (2022).
- iGaming Business, Taiwan moves to close igaming legal loophole (2019).
- Liberty Times, Online gamblers once often acquitted: Criminal Code Article 266 amended, bettors at home now punished (2026).
- Ministry of Finance, Public Welfare Lottery Issue Act (accessed 6 October 2026).
- National Treasury Administration, Ministry of Finance, Introduction to the Public Welfare Lottery Section (accessed 6 October 2026).
- National Treasury Administration, Ministry of Finance, Q&A for the Public Welfare Lottery (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Department of Statistics, Ministry of Finance, Statistical Bulletin: Public Welfare Lottery (2025).
- CTBC Holding, CTBC Bank selected to continue issuing the public welfare lottery (2024–2033) (2022).
- Ministry of Sports, Sports Lottery Issue Act (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Ministry of Sports, Sports Lottery (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Executive Yuan, New sports ministry to kick off new era of sports for Taiwan (2025).
- Sports Administration, Ministry of Education (via Executive Yuan), Amendment of the Sports Lottery Issue Act for the third sports lottery term (2022).
- Anue/cnyes, ADATA again wins sports lottery issuing right (2022).
- Taipei Times, Taiwan Sports Lottery sales hit record in 2024 (2025).
- Economic Daily News (udn), Sports lottery sales reach NT$71 billion in 2025; 2026 target NT$85 billion (2026).
- Taipei Times, Residents of Penghu reject casino resort plan (2009).
- Taipei Times, Matsu votes to allow building of casino (2012).
- Taipei Times, Premier amenable to casino proposal (2013).
- Taipei Times, Penghu casino referendum rejected (2016).
- Focus Taiwan (CNA), Kinmen voters overwhelmingly reject casino idea (2017).
- Taipei Times, Kinmen nixes casino development (2017).
- Taipei Times, Taiwan in Time: Get rich through patriotism (2017).
- Ministry of Finance, Income Tax Act (English translation) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Taiwan Lottery, Responsible gaming (preventing excessive betting) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Yahoo Sports Taiwan, Sports Administration upgraded to Ministry of Sports: the role of the sports lottery (2024).
- GGRAsia, Taiwan probes US$1bln suspected laundering case tied to Macau chip purchases (2026).
