Online gambling is not illegal in Malaysia, but it is regulated by government and semi-religious authorities. Specifically, documents like the Civil Law Act 1956 and the Malaysian Contracts Act shed light on these regulations by stating that all gaming and wagering contracts are void. The Civil law act of Malaysia. Gambling Laws in Malaysia. Malaysia has an interesting take on the legality of gambling. Most forms of gambling are prohibited across the country with the exception of parimutuel horse betting, the national lottery and the Genting Highlands resort. Additionally, there are two different sets of laws; one set applies to ethnic Malays and another. Malaysia: Gambling Laws and Regulations 2021. ICLG - Gambling Laws and Regulations - covers common issues in gambling laws and regulations – including relevant authorities and legislation, application for a licence, licence restrictions, digital media, enforcement and liability – in 37 jurisdictions.

1. Gambling Law In Malaysia
2. Gambling Law In Malaysia Kuala Lumpur
3. Gambling Law In Malaysia Philippines

Malaysia is home to 30 million people and gambling is a popular, if heavily regulated pastime. No laws specifically address online gambling but it is illegal to run any form of betting establishment without express permission from the authorities. Underground gambling dens are common in the country as well as unlicensed betting websites.

Best Malaysian Betting Sites

It is clearly illegal to operate Malaysian betting sites, but the legality of playing at offshore sites isn’t as clear. Some of the question depends on your citizenship status in the country. Ethnic Malays are considered Muslim and are therefore prohibited from all forms of gambling under Sharia law which is enforced in the country.

On one hand, the law is not clear on whether or not it is a violation for non-native Malaysians to gamble online. As you will read below, it depends on how existing laws are interpreted. On the other hand, government officials have made statements that indicate they do believe such activity is illegal.

A 2016 quote from the Inspector-General of Police does indicate that they believe merely placing bets with offshore gambling sites is illegal:

“You can go to Singapore to gamble (online), we will not interfere but it is definitely an offence anywhere in Malaysia, even if using the facility from Singapore.”

That may be the position of the police, but it is still unclear if they intend on ever actually taking action against individual players who merely log on to a betting site and place a few wagers online.

Non-native Malaysians have more freedom to gamble as long as they do it with licensed operators in the real world. Placing bets with offshore bookmakers is still a bit of a legal question. The Betting Act of 1953 places penalties on anyone found inside a “common betting house.” Being caught in an unlicensed casino faces a fine of up to 5,000 MYR and a prison sentence of up to six months.

This is scary stuff, but the law appears to be limited to betting in-person at a physical location. Being caught inside a physical unlicensed betting shop is bad news. However, there are no reports of people getting in trouble for patronizing Malaysian online casinos. The law could be interpreted to apply to internet gambling at some point in the future, but that has never happened to our knowledge.

Either way, thousands of Malaysians place bets with online bookmakers and casinos every day. The laws of the country have historically only applied to people gambling in real life. It is possible that this may change, but there is little danger to placing bets online from the privacy of home.

Best Malaysian Betting Websites

If you do decide to gamble online in Malaysia, the safest thing to do would be to place your bets with offshore betting sites. The sites listed on this page operate out of countries where there are no laws against internet gaming. This equates to less risk for you because these sites face no risk of being raided by Malaysian authorities.

Playing at local unlicensed gambling sites presents a greater risk. These types of sites are frequently targeted by the police and their operators face serious legal trouble when this happens. Stick to the offshore sites to minimize the risk. Plus, the sites recommended on this page are run by large corporations with clean track records for safety and security.

I would also recommend staying away from internet cafes for gambling. Keep it discrete and do it at home away from prying eyes. You could also subscribe to a VPN service to mask your internet traffic if you’d really like to add a layer of security.

Now with that out of the way, let’s talk about the fun stuff. Some betting sites based out of other countries promote their services to Malaysians. This includes providing Malay-language software, deposit methods that work with Malaysian financial institutions and the ability to hold your account balance in ringgit.

These are the best types of sites to play at because they’re based in safe jurisdictions but still make an effort to cater to Malaysians. You get the best of both worlds: security and convenience. It is entirely unnecessary to play at local sites run by criminal groups with lax security standards when you have so many better options run by professional organizations.

Malaysian banks are ordered to block transactions to offshore gambling sites. Their success in doing so is mixed, but there’s a chance your credit card deposit is declined due to those regulations. If you have any problems depositing with a card, I encourage you to check out an alternative method such as Entropay, Skrill or Neteller. Skrill and Neteller are increasingly being blocked by banks today, but Entropay has been successful for many people in recent times.

Gambling Laws in Malaysia

Malaysia has an interesting take on the legality of gambling. Most forms of gambling are prohibited across the country with the exception of parimutuel horse betting, the national lottery and the Genting Highlands resort. Additionally, there are two different sets of laws; one set applies to ethnic Malays and another that applies to everyone else.

The law of Malaysia states that it is illegal for Muslims to gamble online. All native-born Malays are considered Muslim by law, so that excludes a large portion of the population from any form of gaming. This even extends to the few forms of legal gambling that exist in the country.

For everyone else, there are a number of laws that dictate the legality of different forms of gaming. There are four pieces of legislation in particular that should be noted:

The Betting Act and Common Gaming Houses Act are the two pieces of legislation most concerning for individual gamblers. Both of these laws include language that stipulate punishments for people caught inside places where gambling is taking place. Here’s a quote taken straight from the Betting Act 1953:

“Any person who bets or wagers in a common betting house, or with a bookmaker on any premises or by any means, shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.
A person found in a common betting house, or found escaping therefrom on the occasion of its being entered under this Act, shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved, to be or to have been betting or wagering therein.”

This law was last updated in 2006 but it still makes no specific mention of the internet. To this day, it is interpreted as applying only to betting in the real world. I urge caution anyways because it’s always possible that some official at some point will interpret the laws differently and decide they apply to online gambling.

The government has issued a few edicts to combat online gambling though. One of these is a strict prohibition of internet café owners from allowing their customers to access internet gaming sites. Another is an order to banks to identify and block financial transactions to and from known gambling websites.

A few forms of betting are legal in Malaysia today. One of these is parimutuel wagering on horse races when done in-person at an authorized racetrack. The other form is lottery-style gambling offered by three authorized companies:

• Mangum 4D

A popular format of lottery is the 4-digit draw in which you pick a four digit number and win if your number is called. Some of these lotteries are drawn at random while others are tied to sports events or races. Da Ma Cai, for example, picks numbers at random and then assigns some of those numbers to horses in an upcoming race. The order in which those horses finish determines the winning four-digit number.

The 5D and 6D lotteries consist of five and six-digit draws respectively. These are more difficult to win but come with significantly larger prizes. The Mega 6/52, for example, guarantees at least RM2,000,000 plus a rolling jackpot that can reach as high as RM20,000,000.

Brick-and-mortar gambling in Malaysia is limited to exactly one casino: The Genting Highlands Resort. This resort, theme park and casino is the brainchild of deceased Malaysian billionaire Lim Goh Tong. He came up with the idea after a trip to the Cameron Highlands and invested his entire fortune into the high-risk plan of building a mega-resort in the middle of nowhere.

Lim Goh Tong eventually decided to build the casino on the side of a mountain about an hour north of Kuala Lumpur. He invested everything he had into the construction of the casino despite family and friends telling him the idea was crazy. He even convinced government officials to make an exception to the country’s strict gambling laws.

It was a long and nearly disastrous construction process that included the construction of a long access road, getting electricity and water to the resort while simultaneously battling poor weather and mudslides. The project was eventually completed and it made Lim Goh Tong a multi-billionaire. He was richest man in Malaysia when he was alive.

The Genting resort still operates today and consists of multiple casinos, world-class hotels, theme parks and other attractions. It is a major destination not just for Malaysians but for Asia as a whole. It also features live entertainment, numerous restaurants, spas, places to shop and much more.

Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, with 60% of its residents being of this particular religion, and Muslim countries often but not always have pretty strict views of gambling and see it as a sin in almost all circumstances.

So in these countries these religious beliefs often shape the law of the country, especially in the more religious countries that follow Islam. The unique thing about Malaysia though is that they have two sets of laws. One set applies to Muslims in the country, including tourists who are Muslim, and the other set applies to non Muslims. (1)

So we have the religious law and the secular law and there are two separate legal systems that function here, with even their own court systems, which is actually necessary because the secular courts based upon common law aren’t going to be experts on Islamic law.

So people in Malaysia become subject to one or the other sets of laws merely by virtue of their religion. Both prohibit gambling, but the secular law permits it when specifically authorized by law, and the Islamic based law just plain prohibits it and there are no exceptions.

The Islamic code of laws here is definitely broader in scope than the common law based system is, and there are all sorts of things that you can get thrown in jail for that normal laws do not prosecute, and basically people are confined to prison for not complying with religious tenants which govern a wide variety of prohibited behaviors, with gambling only being one of many so called vices that are included. (2)

These religious laws are enacted at the state level officially but they are very similar throughout Malaysia. Infractions will get you both fined and imprisoned and there may be lashings involved as well, although gambling does not involve any lashings.

Different Laws For Different Folks

The secular law on gambling has its own act, the Betting Act of 1953, which has been amended several times as gambling has become more liberalized in this country. (3) Bettors face up to 6 months in jail and operators risk being imprisoned for up to 5 years.

As far as which law applies, all ethnic Malays are required by law to be Sunni Muslims, so it is a distinction that can be made purely on one’s ethnic background, and it is not even a matter of renouncing one’s faith to be subject to the normal laws, as you can be thrown in jail for not practicing the Muslim faith if you are an ethnic Malay, as you are deemed by law to be Muslim.

Gambling Law In Malaysia

To cater to the non Muslims and tourists, Malaysia does have a good amount of legal land based gambling, and offer pretty much everything other than sports gambling, which is prohibited. Rumors are that they came close to licensing sports betting a few years ago but the deal fell through at the last minute due to too much political opposition.

Gambling Law In Malaysia Kuala Lumpur

It’s not that land based gambling is rampant here by any means, and its growth is kept well in check by a vocal opposition, which is to be expected in a country that does not allow most of its people to partake in gambling at all. They are at least wise enough to realize that the significant part of the population that doesn’t follow the majority religion should not be subject to their religious laws.

There is a single land based casino here, the Resorts World Genting, and although this is in a secluded location in the mountains it is only about an hour’s drive away from Kuala Lampur, a world class city with a metropolitan area of 7.5 million people, and this facility is truly impressive, and the views alone are said to be worth the trip. (4)

Playing Poker in Malaysia

There are no legal land based poker rooms in Malaysia, and poker hasn’t historically been that popular of a game here, but this has improved lately, and more and more Malays are being turned on to poker, but this has happened during the internet era and therefore online poker is the only significant venue for it, but it has served the burgeoning poker market quite well indeed. (5)

There is indeed an underground gambling market here which the police battle to control, and you may be able to find a live poker game within this scene if you know the right people, but most of this underground gambling is focused on sports betting and bookie operations, as this is the one type of gambling that the government of Malaysia doesn’t want at all, so there is a need that isn’t being satisfied. (6)

The casino does offer poker but it’s casino poker, pitting players against the house, which isn’t considered true poker by most. They would probably offer real poker tables if the demand was there but it doesn’t seem to be high enough for this as of yet. There’s nothing particular stopping this though other than live poker not being popular enough yet, as they do permit casino games generally, and live poker is considered a casino game.

The government doesn’t license online gambling like they do land based gambling, at least not as of yet, so players have to play their online poker at foreign based sites, which isn’t a problem to do. Malaysian banks are not allowed to permit payments to gambling sites though, so players have to use alternative means such as internet wallets to move money in and out of poker sites, which isn’t much of a problem either.

Malaysia is one of the countries where access to online poker has been restricted somewhat as of late, which some of the major poker sites have done, and in this case it’s likely that Malaysia is perceived as too much of a grey market.

It’s not that clear what goes into these decisions but there are a lot of Islamic countries on this list in addition to some countries where online poker isn’t real popular and Malaysia fits both, as there isn’t a lot of online poker players from here and losing sites like PokerStars in particular probably won’t do much to change things.

Fortunately though there are some poker sites that will accept Malay players so online poker lives on here, and who knows, maybe it will even catch on more in the coming years.

References:

1. The Gambling Laws in Malaysia

2. Syriah Criminal Offenses

3. Betting Act 1953

4. Resorts World Genting

Gambling Law In Malaysia Philippines

5. Malaysian Online Poker

6. Malaysia Online Gambling Sites

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