Gambling in Turkmenistan: Laws, Licensing and Online Play

Published by Casino News Daily editorial teamReviewed byFilip RadulovicOur editorial approach

Turkmenistan has no functioning legal gambling market. On paper, gambling is not prohibited outright: the Law on Licensing Certain Types of Activity lists “activity related to gambling and games for money” and “lottery activity” among the activities that require a state licence, and casinos were licensed under a presidential decree from 1995. In practice, the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism (EAG) reported in 2023 that no casinos were operating in the country. No online gambling operator holds a Turkmen licence, and the state controls internet access tightly through a single state-owned provider that blocks large parts of the web and many virtual private networks (VPNs). This guide sets out what can be verified about the legal framework, the licensing model, online gambling, the position of players, taxation and recent developments, and identifies the points that could not be confirmed from published sources.

Key points

Gambling and lottery activity are licensable activities under the Law of Turkmenistan No. 202-III of 25 June 2008 on licensing; carrying out a licensable activity without a licence attracts liability and confiscation of the income.
Casinos, racetracks and slot-machine halls were historically regulated by Presidential Decree No. 2395 of November 1995. Two gambling establishments were licensed and operating in August 2010.
The EAG’s 2023 mutual evaluation states that “no casinos … are currently operating in Turkmenistan”. A specific legal act formally banning casinos or slot machines could not be identified.
No online casino or betting operator is licensed in Turkmenistan. The internet is provided by the state-owned Turkmentelecom, which blocks many foreign websites and VPN services.
No national self-exclusion scheme, gambling helpline or published gambling tax regime could be found.

Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.

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Historical development

After independence in 1991, Turkmenistan regulated commercial gambling through executive decrees rather than a dedicated gambling statute. The EAG’s first mutual evaluation report on Turkmenistan (2011) records that the “gambling business” was carried out under Presidential Decree No. 2395 of November 1995. The report gives the date as both 5 and 15 November 1995 in different paragraphs, so the exact day is uncertain. The decree defined the gambling business as the operation of casinos, racetracks and slot-machine parlours. Licences were issued by the State Committee for Tourism and Sport, which could suspend a licence for up to one month or revoke it, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Main Tax Service also monitored compliance.

The same report shows how small the sector was. The State Committee had issued two gambling licences, and as of 1 August 2010 two gambling establishments were operating. The evaluators also noted gaps: there was no requirement as to the ownership structure of casinos, and the activities of “online casinos” were “not covered by the existing law”. The EAG mutual evaluation is a peer review of a country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) system against the standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF); Turkmenistan is an EAG member.

At about the same time, the government promoted a very different vision for its Caspian coast. The Avaza (Awaza) National Tourist Zone, whose first facilities opened in June 2009, was presented as a flagship resort project. An official page on the website of the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Italy describes a planned third phase intended to create “a kind of Turkmen ‘Las Vegas’ with numerous casinos”. The Moscow Times reported in June 2011 that then President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov had promised that “a Turkmen Las Vegas will appear here, with numerous casinos and other entertainment centers”, and Al Jazeera reported in December 2011 that the president described Avaza as his country’s answer to Las Vegas.

That casino phase does not appear to have materialised. By the time of the EAG’s second evaluation, based on an on-site visit in August 2022 and published in July 2023, evaluators recorded that no casinos were operating anywhere in the country. Reports describing a formal “ban” on casinos and slot machines in Turkmenistan circulate on secondary websites, but none of the sources reviewed for this guide identifies the legal act, its date or its content, and this guide does not treat such a ban as established.

Legal framework

Checking gambling legislation and licensing

Turkmenistan has no single gambling act comparable to those found in many other jurisdictions. The rules that can be verified are spread across licensing law, AML/CFT law and the general codes. Access to Turkmen legislation is itself limited: many consolidated texts could be consulted for this guide only through databases of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) legislation.

Licensing law

The most concrete legal basis is the Law of Turkmenistan “On Licensing Certain Types of Activity” (No. 202-III of 25 June 2008), published by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in a version amended to 29 January 2016. Article 20(1) lists the activities that require a licence. They include, at item 31, “activity related to gambling and games for money” (деятельность, связанная с азартными играми и играми на деньги) and, at item 47, “lottery activity” (лотерейная деятельность).

A licensing system of this kind is the opposite of an outright prohibition: it means an activity is lawful only if carried out under a licence issued by the competent body. Under Articles 5 and 6, the licensing bodies are designated by the Cabinet of Ministers. Article 22(3) provides that carrying out a licensable activity without a licence “entails liability in accordance with the legislation of Turkmenistan”, and that income or profit received from it is to be confiscated to the central budget. Whether a later version of the licensing law has changed the list of activities could not be verified.

Criminal and administrative law

The Law of 17 April 2022 approved a new edition of the Criminal Code of Turkmenistan, which entered into force on 1 January 2023. Whether the Criminal Code contains a gambling-specific offence could not be verified. Only the list of article titles in a consolidated version of the Criminal Code as amended to 22 November 2025 could be reviewed, and no title there refers to gambling, casinos, lotteries or betting; this does not establish that the code is silent on the subject. No published prosecution for gambling-related conduct was found.

The Code of Administrative Offences was adopted by Law No. 422-IV of 29 August 2013. Its consolidated table of contents as amended to 11 April 2026 likewise shows no article title referring to gambling, but the full article texts of both codes could not be checked, so whether either code penalises gambling-related conduct, for example inside a more general provision, remains unverified. Readers should treat claims that specific criminal or administrative articles punish “organising gambling” in Turkmenistan with caution unless the article text is cited.

Anti-money laundering law

Gambling is also relevant to the AML/CFT regime. The 2011 EAG report listed “companies organizing lotteries and other risk-based games” among designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs), the category of non-bank businesses that must apply AML/CFT measures such as customer identification and suspicious transaction reporting. The 2023 EAG mutual evaluation report notes that the Ministry of Finance and Economy is responsible for licensing gambling operators, and states that “no casinos or trust and company service providers are currently operating in Turkmenistan”.

Regulator and licensing model

Turkmenistan’s model is best described as a dormant licensing system. The law provides for licences, but no licensed gambling operator is known to be active, and there is no dedicated gambling regulator, published register of licensees or published licence fee schedule.

The verifiable institutional history is as follows:

Period	Legal basis	Licensing body	Market status
1995 to about 2010	Presidential Decree No. 2395 (November 1995)	State Committee for Tourism and Sport	Two licences; two establishments operating on 1 August 2010
From 2008	Law No. 202-III on licensing, Article 20(1), items 31 and 47	Bodies designated by the Cabinet of Ministers	Gambling and lotteries listed as licensable activities
2022–2023 (EAG evaluation)	Licensing law and AML/CFT legislation	Ministry of Finance and Economy (gambling operators)	No casinos operating

The table relies on the EAG reports of 2011 and 2023 and the 2008 licensing law. No official source found for this guide states how many gambling or lottery licences, if any, are currently in force, and the website of the Ministry of Finance and Economy does not publish a gambling register.

Lotteries

Lottery activity is licensable under item 47 of Article 20(1) of the licensing law. No current national or state lottery, operating body or lottery statute could be verified from official or reputable sources for this guide. No dedicated Law of Turkmenistan “On Lotteries” was found in the sources reviewed. Readers should not assume that a lawful lottery product is available.

Land-based casinos and the Avaza zone

No land-based casino is known to operate in Turkmenistan, according to the EAG. The casinos once foreseen for the Avaza tourist zone were described in official material as part of a future phase. No source reviewed for this guide confirms that any casino licence was issued there or that a casino opened.

Online gambling and enforcement

Online casino games on mobile devices

There is no licensed online gambling in Turkmenistan. In 2011 the EAG observed that the activities of online casinos were “not covered by the existing law”, meaning that the licensing framework did not provide a route for remote gambling. No later legislation creating an online licence was found. Any online casino or sports betting site accessible from Turkmenistan therefore operates without Turkmen authorisation. Under the licensing law, carrying out a licensable activity without a licence entails liability and confiscation of the income, although there is no indication that this has been applied to foreign online operators.

In practice, the main barrier to online gambling is the state’s control of the internet rather than gambling-specific enforcement. Blocking here means preventing users from reaching websites or services at the level of the network. According to a July 2019 report by Turkmen.news, based on research by the Qurium Media Foundation, Turkmentelecom, described as the country’s sole internet provider, blocked 133 of the world’s most popular websites. These included major news outlets and social networks. The report said blocking was carried out by DNS spoofing, IP blocking and inspection of HTTP host headers. It did not mention gambling sites specifically, and the authorities do not officially acknowledge or publish a blocklist.

Restrictions on VPNs, which route traffic through servers abroad to bypass blocking, have intensified. EurasiaNet reported in March 2021 that VPN apps had begun malfunctioning for users in Turkmenistan, citing Chronicles of Turkmenistan. In July 2025, The Times of Central Asia, citing Turkmen.news, reported that the national IP blacklist had been expanded with entire /16 subnets of more than 65,000 addresses each, and that unauthorised VPN access was being sold for around 1,000 manats a month. The Foreign Ministry rejected similar reporting as “biased and false”. Reporters Without Borders states that citizens “risk a fine if they try to use a VPN” and ranks Turkmenistan 173rd of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index (174th in 2025). Freedom House scored Turkmenistan 1 out of 100 in Freedom in the World 2025, noting that some previously blocked VPNs became accessible but could be monitored by the security services.

No specific rules on gambling advertising, payment blocking for gambling transactions or gambling-specific website blocking were found. In practice, these questions are largely overtaken by the general filtering regime; EurasiaNet also reported in 2021 that services such as PayPal were unavailable in the country.

Sports betting

The 1995 decree covered racetracks, and the licensing law covers gambling generally, so betting would in principle require a licence. No licensed bookmaker, totalisator or betting shop could be identified, and no official source describing current sports betting arrangements was found. Sports betting with foreign websites falls into the same unlicensed category as online casinos.

Position of players

The legal position of individual players is not clearly defined in the sources available. The licensing law addresses those who carry out a licensable activity, that is, operators. No provision was found that makes it an offence for an individual to place a bet or play a casino game, whether in person or online, and no reported prosecution or fine of a player for gambling was found.

That does not mean that playing online is free of risk. Reaching foreign gambling websites will often require a VPN, and RSF reports that VPN use exposes citizens to fines. Freedom House reports that social media users who visited the accounts of independent media or exiled opposition groups were questioned and had their devices seized. Players who use offshore sites have no access to any Turkmen regulator or complaints procedure if a dispute arises, and foreign licensing authorities generally have no mandate to resolve complaints from players in jurisdictions where the operator is not authorised.

Taxation

No gambling-specific tax regime could be verified. With no casinos operating and no licensed online operators, there is in practice no gambling tax base on the operator side. The 2011 EAG report notes that the Main Tax Service was involved in monitoring the gambling business while casinos were licensed, but it does not set out the rates that applied.

For players, no provision of the Tax Code of Turkmenistan dealing specifically with gambling or lottery winnings was located in the sources reviewed. Readers with a tax question should consult the Ministry of Finance and Economy or a qualified local adviser rather than rely on general statements found online.

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Turkmenistan has no national self-exclusion register, no published gambling harm-minimisation rules and no dedicated gambling helpline that could be identified. Self-exclusion is a scheme through which a person asks to be barred from gambling services for a set period; such schemes depend on a licensed market whose operators are obliged to honour them, and no such market exists in Turkmenistan. No organisation offering specialised gambling support within the country was found.

Players in Turkmenistan who use foreign sites are therefore outside any local consumer-protection framework. Common protective steps include setting personal deposit and time limits, using the self-exclusion and limit tools that reputable foreign operators provide, and seeking help early from family, a doctor or an international online support service. General guidance is available in our responsible gambling guide.

Recent and upcoming developments

EAG second-round evaluation (2023). The EAG’s mutual evaluation report, approved at the group’s 38th plenary and announced on 21 July 2023, recorded that no casinos were operating and that the Ministry of Finance and Economy licenses gambling operators. It recommended risk-based supervision across the AML/CFT system.
New Criminal Code edition (2023). A new edition of the Criminal Code approved on 17 April 2022 took effect on 1 January 2023. Whether it contains a gambling-specific offence could not be verified from the article titles available.
Internet restrictions (2024–2025). Media reports describe a temporary unblocking of about three billion IP addresses in July 2024, followed by a broad expansion of IP blocking and new pressure on VPN services in 2025. Freedom House reported that some previously blocked VPNs became accessible during the period covered by its 2025 report, with experts warning that they could be monitored.
No liberalisation announced. No bill, decree or official statement proposing to license casinos, online gambling or sports betting was found for 2024–2026. The casino plans once associated with Avaza have not been revived in any official source found for this guide.

Casino listings for players in Turkmenistan

The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that any operator is licensed in Turkmenistan, where no online gambling operator holds a licence and there is no public register of licensed gambling operators. Offering online casino games without a Turkmen licence is not permitted under the licensing law, and using such sites may require tools, such as VPNs, whose use can itself be penalised. The listings must not be read as an indication that playing is lawful in Turkmenistan.

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Key points

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Historical development

Legal framework

Licensing law

Criminal and administrative law

Anti-money laundering law

Regulator and licensing model

Lotteries

Land-based casinos and the Avaza zone

Online gambling and enforcement

Sports betting

Position of players

Taxation

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Recent and upcoming developments

Casino listings for players in Turkmenistan

Related country guides

Sources and further reading

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