{"id":24685,"date":"2021-11-19T07:46:41","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T10:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=24685"},"modified":"2026-04-23T13:41:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:41:05","slug":"malaysian-minister-opposes-kedah-gambling-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/malaysian-minister-opposes-kedah-gambling-ban","title":{"rendered":"Malaysian minister opposes Kedah gambling ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Datuk Seri M. Saravanan, Malaysia&#8217;s human resources minister, said the measure would lead to job losses and an increase in illegal gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Malaysia.- National authorities have criticised a decision by the state of <strong>Kedah <\/strong>to ban gambling in the state. Datuk Seri M. Saravanan,  Malaysia&#8217;s human resources minister, said the move would cause jobs to be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities in the state of Kedah had announced that they would not renew business licences for gambling shops, effectively banning the businesses in a bid to tackle gambling-related harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor<\/strong>, first minister of Kedah, had said: &#8220;This is to ensure a Kedah free of gambling, as we all know it has caused the collapse of family institutions and even civilisations, besides resulting in debt problems.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, Saravan has argued that the measure\u00a0would cause people to turn to <strong>illegal gambling dens\u00a0<\/strong>as people will continue gambling. He said: &#8220;We have had past experiences when samsu (cheap liquor) shops were made illegal \u2013 the operators went underground.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Malaysian casino industry to see an economic rebound in Q4<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/malaysian-casino-industry-to-see-economic-rebound-in-q4\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Casino operators<\/a>&nbsp;can expect to see better results in Q4, according to analysts.&nbsp;<strong>Vincent Khoo, UOB Kay Hian Malaysia head of research,<\/strong>&nbsp;has told The Malaysian Reserve that as the pandemic eases, tourism will be the main beneficiary of the upcoming economic reopening.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said: \u201cThe gaming companies and casino segment is in a sweet spot to capitalise on this post-pandemic leisure boom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/resorts-world-genting-allowed-to-reopen-with-limited-capacity\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Resorts World Genting<\/a>&nbsp;has been allowed to reopen, and&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/genting-malaysia-posts-us82-8m-loss-for-q2\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Genting Malaysia Berhad<\/a>&nbsp;has narrowed its net loss for the second quarter ending June 30, 2021, from a net loss of MYR904.42m in the same period last year to MYR348.11m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Datuk Seri M. Saravanan, Malaysia&#8217;s human resources minister, said the measure would lead to job losses and an increase in illegal gambling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":8570,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The state of Kedah, Malaysia, has banned gambling by not renewing business licenses, a move criticized by the human resources minister for potential job losses and an increase in illegal gambling. Concurrently, analysts project an economic rebound for the Malaysian casino industry in Q4, driven by tourism recovery, with Genting Malaysia Berhad showing narrowed losses.","focusai_entities":"Datuk Seri M. Saravanan, Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, Vincent Khoo, UOB Kay Hian Malaysia, Resorts World Genting, Genting Malaysia Berhad","focusai_location":"Malaysia, Kedah","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.85), operator_casino (0.95), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Kedah Ban Legal Precedent?","query":"What are the legal and constitutional precedents for a state government in Malaysia to unilaterally ban licensed gambling operations, potentially conflicting with national economic policy?"},{"label":"Impact on GGR\/NGR?","query":"How will the Kedah state's gambling ban, coupled with the projected Q4 casino rebound, collectively impact the overall Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) and Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) forecasts for the Malaysian iGaming and land-based sectors?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,158,16333],"tags":[229,23911],"class_list":["post-24685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24685"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24691,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24685\/revisions\/24691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}