Recently, the prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen announced the ban of online gambling by January 1, 2020. He said that in the coming days, online betting would completely disappear.
In August, he issued a directive in which it was mentioned that all the existing online gambling licenses would be expired at the end of December 2019, and no more permits would be issued. There is less hope to reconsider that directive.
In the 8th Sea Festival in Kampot province, Hun Sen said that if the economy of Cambodia relies on online gambling, then the country’s security will be compromised. He continued that Cambodia is at a higher risk of becoming a shelter for money laundering by organized criminal groups.
In the last few years, Cambodia issued licenses for casinos as well as online gambling sites and become the second-largest gambling hub across the world. Most of the online betting sites targeted the people of China.
In October 2019, the finance minister of Cambodia gave warning to the local online gambling industry that there will be a toll on the government’s treasury. After that, Hun Sen considered that gambling crimes would interest international investors in taking a big-ticket in the country’s non-gaming projects.
After the banning of online gambling in Cambodia, China is supporting the development of non-gaming projects in the Sihanoukville region, which is based on China-facing gambling sites. The Cambodian government is still planning to handle the ban, and China will help its neighboring country in banning online gambling.