Southeast Asia moves to cool lucrative online gambling industries amid China clampdown

Online and phone betting in Southeast Asian countries by punters from China has exploded in the last few years, prompting Beijing to step up efforts to stem what it sees as a ‘cross-border online gambling problem’

The burgeoning industry has transformed Southeast Asian countries, and the abrupt pullback is likely to hurt their economies

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A user on a Philippine online gambling website showing a digital Chinese dealer. Photo: SCMP

Published: 8:13pm, 19 Aug 2019Updated: 2:53pm, 18 Dec 2019

Southeast Asian countries are moving against their lucrative online gambling industries as Beijing clamps down on a practice that has ballooned due to demand from its own citizens.

Weeks after China lashed out at the Philippines for encouraging offshore gambling – which it said targets Chinese customers and causes the illegal outflow of hundreds of millions of yuan – the Philippine gaming regulator said on Monday it would stop accepting applications for new online gaming operations at least until the end of the year, to review concerns about the burgeoning sector.

Separately, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said on Sunday that Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered a stop to new licences for online gambling operations. Existing licenses also will not be renewed upon expiry, said the report.

The about-turn in gambling policy in these Southeast Asian nations comes as China steps up efforts against what its minister for public security called “the cross-border online gambling problem”.

Online and phone betting in Southeast Asian countries by Chinese punters many miles away has exploded in the last few years, and there are signs that the offshore services are penetrating more deeply into China’s population than expected.