Cambodia Enforces Online Gambling Ban at 24 Casinos

Cambodia has now put its online gambling ban to the test, and inspectors came back with hard numbers. Twenty-four licensed venues across three provinces stopped running internet betting products before the September 30 deadline. Operators had already dismantled the hardware and moved it off the premises. Twelve of those casinos sit in Preah Sihanouk, seven in Banteay Meanchey and five in Svay Rieng, and the gaming floors at all of them stay open as normal.

What Inspectors Found on the Ground

The online gambling ban in Cambodia reached further than live dealer streams. Casinos pulled down online sports and football betting, digital lottery products and the online market on bird fights. All of those services had run from the same licensed premises as the table games. Inspectors looked for physical evidence rather than paperwork, and they confirmed that the equipment and supporting materials behind those services had gone.

Compliance on this scale was never guaranteed. Operators that break the online gambling ban in Cambodia face legal action and consequences for their licences, which gives the September deadline teeth that earlier announcements lacked. Monitoring at the 24 properties continues, and officials have signalled that checks will spread to other venues.

Why Cambodia Pushed the Online Gambling Ban This Far

Money was the trigger. Interior Minister Sar Sokha said in September that live gambling broadcasts from casino floors hid where the money came from. Investigators could not establish reliably where funds entered those operations or where they travelled afterwards. That supervision gap sits at the centre of the online gambling ban Cambodia now enforces.

The policy runs deeper than this month’s sweep. Cambodia first moved toward a ban on online gambling in 2019, when it stopped issuing new licences and then refused to renew the permits already in circulation. Some casinos kept serving online players anyway, either through loopholes or by running the services directly from licensed floors. The latest round of inspections set out to confirm those services had finally stopped.

Licence Action Has Already Thinned the Estate

The online gambling ban in Cambodia lands on a sector that enforcement has already reshaped. Authorities investigated 195 licensed venues over the past year, and at least 72 of them closed after regulators revoked their licences or declined to renew them. Slightly more than 100 casinos remain legally active across the country.

Land-based operations stay permitted throughout. That distinction matters for anyone reading the headlines as a sector-wide shutdown. The licensed estate continues to trade on its floors, take bets at its tables and employ thousands of staff. The pressure falls on operators that moved into online products or allowed their premises to serve other purposes.

Scam Investigations Run on a Parallel Track

Cambodia’s ban on online gambling overlaps with a far larger campaign against technology-enabled fraud. Authorities say they have cleared more than 600 locations suspected of hosting online scam activity, and casino properties have appeared repeatedly in that work. By September 2026, regulators had revoked the licences of 18 casinos linked to online fraud, with another nine suspended while investigators gather evidence and weigh further action.

The financial consequences reach past licensing. Officials are pursuing the seizure, freezing and confiscation of assets held by premises owners and casino shareholders tied to scam offences. The Commercial Gambling Management Commission is running that effort alongside judicial authorities and the Financial Intelligence Unit. The government has also asked the public and international partners to report suspicious sites.

An Integrity Test Is Coming for Licence Renewals

Regulators are building the next stage into the licensing process itself. The Commercial Gambling Management Commission is developing an integrity assessment framework that officials expect to become the benchmark for future approvals and renewals. Operators that want to keep trading will have to clear a standard that did not exist a year ago.

That framework turns a burst of enforcement into a permanent entry condition. Venues already carrying a suspension or a revocation face an obvious problem when the new test arrives. For everyone else, compliance costs rise before the next renewal cycle opens.

What Comes Next for Operators

Cambodia now runs two clearly separated tracks. Licensed land-based casinos keep operating under valid permits, while the online gambling ban in Cambodia leaves internet products barred and pushes scam-linked properties through investigation and possible licence action. The split gives regulators a cleaner line to police, and the September results suggest operators would rather strip out equipment than test it.

The open question is what the sector looks like once the integrity framework arrives. A smaller and far more heavily scrutinised estate seems likely, with fewer operators and tighter conditions attached to every licence. Casinos that survived the past year now have a narrow window to prepare.