Legal casino gambling age in Viet NamVietnam treats gambling as a criminal matter by default and permits it only through narrow, state-controlled exceptions. Casinos may operate under a government decree, but for most of their history they have been open only to foreigners; Vietnamese citizens have been admitted only under a pilot scheme, first at a single casino on Phu Quoc island and, since November 2025, at three named sites. Betting on horse racing, greyhound racing and international football is authorised in principle, and the state lottery is legal. No form of online casino gambling is licensed. Gambling outside these channels, including on foreign websites, is an administrative offence and, above a modest threshold, a crime under the Penal Code for players as well as organisers.
Key points
- Casinos are governed by Decree 03/2017/ND-CP, amended by Decree 145/2024/ND-CP. Casino projects require at least US$2 billion of investment and must form part of a larger resort complex.
- Under Government Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP of 26 November 2025, eligible Vietnamese citizens may gamble at Corona Phu Quoc without a fixed end date, and at Ho Tram and Van Don under five-year pilots. Players must be at least 21, meet an income test and buy an entry ticket.
- Decree 06/2017/ND-CP allows betting on horse racing, greyhound racing and a single-operator pilot for international football betting. At the time of review no football betting operation had been reported as running.
- Articles 321 (gambling) and 322 (organising gambling) of the Penal Code apply to stakes of VND 5 million or more. Committing the offence over the internet is an aggravating circumstance carrying up to seven and ten years’ imprisonment respectively.
- No online casino is licensed. Authorities pursue offshore gambling sites through criminal investigations, advertising blacklists and requests to telecoms providers and banks.
- Casino and electronic prize-winning game revenue is subject to special consumption tax at 35%, and betting at 30%, from 1 January 2026.
Last reviewed: 6 October 2026.
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Historical development
For decades the lottery was the main legal gambling product available to Vietnamese citizens, and it remains so. According to a Vietnam Briefing overview of legalised gambling, the national electronic lottery operator Vietlott was established in 2011, and in 2013 Decree 86/2013/ND-CP regulated electronic prize-winning games (gaming machines) for foreigners.
The policy shift came in 2016, when the Politburo, the leading body of the Communist Party of Vietnam, approved a trial allowing Vietnamese citizens to gamble at casinos on Phu Quoc and in Van Don (Viet Nam News, November 2024). The government implemented this in January 2017 with Decree 03/2017/ND-CP on casino business, followed by Decree 06/2017/ND-CP on betting on horse racing, greyhound racing and international football. Corona Resort & Casino on Phu Quoc opened in January 2019 and became the only casino admitting Vietnamese players. The Van Don project did not open.
The three-year trial at Phu Quoc was due to end in January 2022. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic it was extended by two years, and the Politburo approved a further extension in May 2024 (Viet Nam News). Decree 145/2024/ND-CP then fixed 31 December 2024 as the end of the first pilot. On that date Corona suspended entry for Vietnamese citizens, describing the closure as temporary (iGaming Business, December 2024). Access resumed on 26 November 2025, when the government adopted Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP (see below).
Legal framework
The framework consists of government decrees (secondary legislation, not statutes of the National Assembly), the Penal Code and a decree on administrative penalties.
Casinos: Decree 03/2017/ND-CP and its amendments
Decree 03/2017/ND-CP on casino business was issued in January 2017 and took effect on 15 March 2017, according to a legal alert by ZICO Law. Its main features, as summarised by ZICO and by Duane Morris, are:
- casinos may operate only as part of an integrated complex of tourism, services and entertainment, including hotels and conference facilities; stand-alone casinos are not allowed;
- a casino project requires minimum investment capital of US$2 billion, of which at least 50% must be disbursed before the casino business certificate is issued;
- the number of gaming tables and machines is tied to disbursed capital: one table and ten machines for every US$10 million;
- the certificate is issued for a term of up to 20 years and may be extended by up to ten years;
- Vietnamese players may not receive winnings in foreign currency.
Article 12 of the decree governs the pilot for Vietnamese citizens. It was amended by Decree 145/2024/ND-CP of 4 November 2024, which ended the first operator’s pilot on 31 December 2024, set three-year pilots for later operators from the date of their certificate, and required casinos to stop admitting Vietnamese citizens once a pilot ends, until the government decides whether to continue.
The conditions for Vietnamese players are set by the decree. According to Asia Gaming Brief and Tilleke & Gibbins, a player must be at least 21, have full civil capacity, have a monthly income of at least VND 10 million or fall in the third personal income tax bracket or above, and must not be the subject of a written objection lodged by a parent, spouse or sibling. Players must buy an entry ticket costing VND 1 million for 24 consecutive hours or VND 25 million for a month.
Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP
On 26 November 2025 the government adopted Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP. The text, as reported by the Vietnam News Agency (VietnamPlus) and the government news portal, provides that:
- Vietnamese citizens who meet the conditions may gamble at the Phu Quoc casino from 26 November 2025, with no end date specified;
- a five-year pilot applies at the Ho Tram casino, from 26 November 2025;
- a five-year pilot applies at the Van Don casino, from the date it receives its casino business certificate;
- when the Ho Tram and Van Don pilots end, those casinos must stop admitting Vietnamese citizens until the government decides otherwise.
Betting: Decree 06/2017/ND-CP
Decree 06/2017/ND-CP, in force since 31 March 2017 (ANT Lawyers), regulates betting on horse racing, greyhound racing and international football. Operators need a certificate of eligibility for betting business issued under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance. Minimum capital is VND 1 trillion for horse racing and football betting and VND 300 billion for greyhound racing. A Vietnam Briefing summary (2018) records a minimum player age of 21 and a daily stake limit of VND 1 million. International football betting is restricted to a single operator, selected by tender, for a five-year pilot, and only on matches recognised by FIFA. Sports betting received a statutory basis when Law No. 26/2018/QH14 amended the Law on Physical Training and Sports, with effect from 1 February 2019 (ANT Lawyers). Decree 23/2024/ND-CP restated that investors seeking to run international football betting must take part in a competitive tender (European Gaming, March 2024).
The Penal Code
The Penal Code 2015 (Law 100/2015/QH13, amended in 2017) contains two gambling offences. The texts below follow the statutory wording as reproduced by the Duong Cong law office (Article 321) and (Article 322).
- Article 321 (gambling). Illegally gambling for money or goods worth VND 5 million to under VND 50 million, or under VND 5 million by a person previously fined or convicted for gambling, is punishable by a fine of VND 20 million to 100 million, non-custodial reform for up to three years, or six months’ to three years’ imprisonment. The penalty rises to three to seven years where the offence is professional, the stake is VND 50 million or more, the offender uses the internet, computer or telecommunications networks or electronic means, or in cases of dangerous recidivism. An additional fine of VND 10 million to 50 million may be imposed.
- Article 322 (organising gambling or running a gambling den). The basic offence, punishable by a fine of VND 50 million to 300 million or one to five years’ imprisonment, covers, among other things, organising ten or more people to gamble at once with total stakes of VND 5 million or more, or total stakes in one session of VND 20 million or more. The penalty rises to five to ten years where the offence is professional, the illicit profit is VND 50 million or more, or the offender uses the internet, computer or telecommunications networks or electronic means.
The Penal Code was amended again by Law 86/2025/QH15, adopted on 25 June 2025. A draft had proposed raising the criminal threshold for gambling from VND 5 million to VND 10 million (VnExpress, April 2025), but the law as adopted did not amend Articles 321 or 322 (LuatVietnam). The VND 5 million threshold therefore still applies.
Administrative penalties
Gambling below the criminal threshold is an administrative offence. From 15 December 2025, Decree 282/2025/ND-CP, issued on 30 October 2025, replaced Decree 144/2021/ND-CP as the decree on administrative penalties in the field of security and public order. According to a summary by the People’s Police University, its Article 36 sets fines of VND 200,000 to 500,000 for buying illegal lottery numbers (lô đề), VND 1 million to 2 million for gambling at cards, on gaming machines or on sports, VND 5 million to 10 million for organising gambling, and VND 10 million to 20 million for running illegal lottery or betting schemes, with confiscation of equipment and, for foreigners, expulsion as additional measures.
Regulator and licensing model
Vietnam does not have an independent gambling regulator. The Ministry of Finance is the lead authority for casinos and betting: it manages the casino pilot, operates the tender for international football betting, and drafts the implementing decrees. Casinos are authorised individually rather than through an open licensing system. The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) is responsible for investigating illegal gambling.
The model is best described as tightly limited licensing within a general prohibition. According to VietNamNet, citing the Ministry of Finance in December 2025, Vietnam had nine casinos in operation, six small-scale and three large-scale, with two further projects under construction. The ministry does not publish an online register of casino licences that we could locate. In betting, Vietnam Investment Review reported in December 2024 that the only operating greyhound track was in Vung Tau, licensed in 2000, and that an approved horse-racing project in Hanoi had not been built.
The state of the international football pilot is unclear from the sources. Vietnam Briefing reports that Vietnam Lottery (Vietlott) was licensed in 2023 to pilot international football betting. Vietnam Investment Review stated in December 2024 that no enterprise had been licensed under Decree 06 for the pilot. We found no report of a legal football betting service operating as of October 2026.
Online gambling: what is permitted and how it is enforced
No online casino, online poker or online slot service is licensed in Vietnam, and no decree provides for one. The only online element under discussion is account-based international football betting in the draft decree described below. Offering online gambling to people in Vietnam therefore falls under Article 322 of the Penal Code, and use of the internet is itself an aggravating circumstance.
Enforcement relies chiefly on criminal investigation. Police regularly dismantle networks serving Vietnamese customers from abroad. In June 2026 Quang Tri provincial police, working with Lao authorities, charged 53 people with organising gambling in connection with a platform that had allegedly processed more than VND 4 trillion (about US$152 million) from Vietnamese players (Tuoi Tre News).
Blocking is used, but the published record is limited. In December 2023 the MPS Criminal Police Department said it had asked telecommunications agencies to block and tightly control illegal betting websites, and had recommended that the State Bank instruct commercial banks to review, detect and handle suspicious transactions linked to gambling (Bao Phap Luat). The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) publishes a blacklist of websites on which advertisers and publishers must not place advertising. For 2024 it listed 904 websites, mainly sites promoting illegal gambling, betting or unauthorised games; the list followed about 200 sites in 2022 and more than 400 in 2023 (MIC, January 2025). We did not find an official figure for the number of gambling domains blocked at network level.
Advertising of gambling is restricted. Drafting a new casino decree, the Ministry of Finance rejected proposals to extend casino advertising to flights, airports and digital platforms, on the ground that casinos are a non-encouraged business sector (Tap chi Kinh te Tai chinh, February 2026).
Position of players
Unauthorised gambling is unlawful for the participant as well as the organiser, and the law does not distinguish a domestic gambling den from a foreign website.
- Below VND 5 million, an individual who gambles illegally, including on sports, faces an administrative fine of VND 1 million to 2 million under Decree 282/2025/ND-CP.
- At VND 5 million or more, the player commits the crime of gambling under Article 321. Where the internet or electronic means are used, the penalty range is three to seven years’ imprisonment.
Players have in fact been prosecuted. In judgment 419/2023/HS-PT of 13 June 2023, the High People’s Court in Hanoi heard the appeals of six people convicted of betting on football through offshore websites. It upheld the convictions under Article 321(2), including point (c) for use of the internet, and reduced some sentences; the longest was three years’ imprisonment. In July 2026 the MPS Cybersecurity and High-Tech Crime Prevention Department issued a public warning against taking part in online gambling in any form, recalling the VND 5 million threshold and the three-to-seven-year range for online offences (Suc khoe & Doi song, July 2026). Reports of large operations mainly describe charges against organisers and agents (Vietnam.vn, June 2026).
Lawful gambling for Vietnamese adults is limited to the state lottery, licensed betting where it exists, and the casinos named in Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP, subject to the age, income and ticket conditions.
Taxation
Operators
Casino and betting businesses pay special consumption tax (SCT), an excise tax levied on revenue from goods and services the state wishes to discourage, in addition to corporate income tax. Under the Law on Special Consumption Tax No. 66/2025/QH15, in force from 1 January 2026, the rates are 35% for casinos and electronic prize-winning games and 30% for betting businesses (Vietnam Briefing, updated September 2026). Draft rules for the football betting pilot would also require the operator to contribute at least 10% of net betting revenue to the state budget, on top of ordinary taxes (The Investor, September 2025).
Players
Under the new Law on Personal Income Tax No. 109/2025/QH15, in force from 1 July 2026, income from winning prizes is taxed at 10% on the portion of each prize above VND 20 million, up from a VND 10 million threshold under the previous law (KPMG Vietnam). The taxable category covers lottery winnings, betting winnings and prizes in games and contests, but Article 3(6) expressly excludes winnings in a casino. Casino winnings are therefore not subject to personal income tax under the 2025 law.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Player protection relies mainly on restricting who may gamble: the casino entry conditions (age 21, an income test and paid tickets) limit access to people with sufficient means. Decree 03/2017/ND-CP also allows a parent, spouse or sibling to lodge a written objection, which bars the person concerned from the casinos open to Vietnamese citizens; this is the nearest equivalent to a third-party exclusion scheme.
The draft decree to replace Decree 03/2017 would keep the age limit and entry fees and add restriction lists covering both family requests and people who declare themselves barred, a form of voluntary self-exclusion (VietNamNet). We found no national self-exclusion register covering all gambling, no statutory gambling helpline and no dedicated national support organisation for problem gambling in the sources reviewed. General advice on keeping gambling under control is set out in our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
- Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP (26 November 2025). Restored and widened access for Vietnamese citizens: Phu Quoc without a fixed end date, five-year pilots at Ho Tram and, once licensed, Van Don.
- New casino decree (draft). In December 2025 the Ministry of Finance published an impact assessment for a decree to replace Decree 03/2017. Officials were considering whether a higher entry fee could replace detailed income verification (SiGMA, December 2025), and Tilleke & Gibbins reports a proposed rise in ticket prices to VND 2.5 million a day and VND 50 million a month. A February 2026 consultation summary described the decree as still in draft. We could not confirm whether it had been issued by 6 October 2026.
- New betting decree (draft). In September 2025 the Ministry of Finance proposed a decree to replace Decree 06/2017, with a five-year, single-operator pilot for international football betting, a daily limit of VND 10 million per player, a minimum stake of VND 10,000, a minimum age of 21, foreign ownership capped at 49%, and bets placed only through verified accounts linked to bank or e-wallet services (Gambling Insider; The Investor). In October 2025 the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry asked for a VND 100 million daily limit (Vietnam.vn). Its adoption status at the time of review could not be verified.
- Enforcement (2026). The MPS issued a nationwide warning against online gambling in July 2026, and provincial police continued cross-border operations (see above).
Casino listings for players in Vietnam
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is licensed in Vietnam: no online casino holds a Vietnamese licence, and gambling with an unlicensed operator is an offence for residents under Decree 282/2025/ND-CP and, for stakes of VND 5 million or more, under Article 321 of the Penal Code. The listings must not be read as an indication that playing online casino games from Vietnam is lawful.
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Sources and further reading
- Government of Viet Nam (VGP News), Gov’t permits qualified Vietnamese nationals to gamble at three casinos (2025).
- Vietnam News Agency (VietnamPlus), Từ 26/11, người Việt Nam đủ điều kiện được chơi casino ở Phú Quốc, Hồ Tràm, Vân Đồn (Resolution 8/2025/NQ-CP) (2025).
- LuatVietnam, Nghị định 145/2024/NĐ-CP sửa đổi Nghị định 03/2017/NĐ-CP về kinh doanh casino (accessed 6 October 2026).
- ZICO Law, New Decree on Casino Business Activities in Vietnam (2017).
- Duane Morris LLP (via Mondaq), Casino Business Breaking News: the law is issued, Vietnamese can gamble (2017).
- Tilleke & Gibbins, New Developments in Vietnam’s Casino Policies for Local Gamblers (2025).
- Asia Gaming Brief, Grand Ho Tram receives 5-year local gaming authorization, Van Don to follow; Corona secures permanent license (2025).
- Viet Nam News, Pilot programme allowing Vietnamese to gamble in casinos extended (2024).
- VietNamNet, Vietnam proposes allowing citizens aged 21 and over to enter casinos (2025).
- Vietnam Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates), Legalized Gambling in Vietnam: An Overview (accessed 6 October 2026).
- SiGMA, Vietnam may ease citizen entry rules under new casino laws (2025).
- Tạp chí Kinh tế Tài chính (Ministry of Finance), Hoàn thiện Nghị định mới về kinh doanh casino (2026).
- ANT Lawyers, The Business Conditions for Sports Betting in Vietnam (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Vietnam Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates), Vietnam Legalizes Sports Betting (2018).
- Vietnam Investment Review, Revenues left untapped in betting arena (2024).
- Gambling Insider, Vietnam to trial single-operator football betting scheme (2025).
- Văn phòng Luật sư Dương Công, Tội đánh bạc (Điều 321 BLHS) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- Văn phòng Luật sư Dương Công, Tội tổ chức đánh bạc (Điều 322 BLHS) (accessed 6 October 2026).
- LuatVietnam, Law amending the Penal Code, No. 86/2025/QH15 (2025).
- High People’s Court in Hanoi (via Thư viện Pháp luật), Judgment No. 419/2023/HS-PT on gambling (online football betting) (2023).
- LuatVietnam, Đánh bạc bị phạt hành chính như thế nào theo Nghị định 282/2025/NĐ-CP? (2025).
- People’s Police University, Hành vi đánh bạc trái phép có thể bị phạt tới 20.000.000 đồng (2026).
- Ministry of Information and Communications, Over 900 websites banned for advertising in Vietnam in 2024 (2025).
- Báo Pháp luật Việt Nam, Cục Cảnh sát Hình sự (Bộ Công an): Nhiều giải pháp phòng, chống cờ bạc online (2023).
- Vietnam Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates), Vietnam Special Consumption Tax Regime in 2026: Key Highlights (2026).
- National Assembly of Vietnam (via Thư viện Pháp luật), Law on Personal Income Tax No. 109/2025/QH15 (2025).
- KPMG in Vietnam, Tax Alert on Personal Income Tax Law (2026).
