From today, it will be legal to play mahjong or poker in Singapore homes under the new Gambling Control Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Singapore.- The government of Singapore has finally established that\u00a0social gambling in the form of mahjong and poker at home <\/strong>will be allowed under the new Gambling Control Act. The games must take place in one of the player’s homes and must not be part of a business.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online social gambling will remain banned\u00a0<\/strong>as the Ministry of Home Affairs noted practical difficulties in determining whether individuals are familiar enough with each other for a game to qualify as social gambling. The law will come into effect today (August 1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In March, the Singapore parliament<\/a> approved the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore Bill<\/strong> and the Gambling Control Bill.<\/strong> The former creates the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA)<\/a> as a single regulator for all forms of gambling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second bill will make it a criminal offence for under-aged individuals to gamble<\/strong>, \u201cregardless whether with legal or unlawful operators\u201d and for under-aged individuals to enter gambling areas, \u201cexcept where entry checks are not required\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Under the new bill, the legal age for gambling in Singapore will remain 21, except for gambling at Singapore Pools\u2019 physical outlets which will remain at 18. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The government of Singapore says it is confident that visitor numbers for the second half of the year will be up by at least two-thirds when compared to the first half figures. The Singapore Tourism Board (STB)<\/strong> expects \u201cbetween 4 and 6 million\u201d international visitor arrivals for the whole of 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the STB also noted tourist traffic may still face headwinds<\/strong> for the remainder of the year due to the volatile global political and economic situation and the ongoing impact of Covid-19. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From today, it will be legal to play mahjong or poker in Singapore homes under the new Gambling Control Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":21187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Effective today, Singapore's new Gambling Control Act permits social mahjong and poker in private homes, provided it's not a business. Online social gambling remains prohibited due to practical enforcement difficulties. The new legislation also establishes the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) as a unified regulator and reinforces age restrictions, with the legal gambling age remaining 21 for most activities.","focusai_entities":"Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA), Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore parliament, Singapore Tourism Board (STB), Singapore Pools","focusai_location":"Singapore","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), affiliate_publisher (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), gambler_consumer (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"GRA's Enforcement Scope?","query":"What specific enforcement powers and governance frameworks will the newly formed Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) implement to oversee both B2C and B2B licensing and ensure compliance across all gaming verticals?"},{"label":"Impact on Digital Market?","query":"Given the explicit ban on online social gambling, what are the long-term implications for the development of regulated digital gaming offerings and the potential for future B2C iGaming market expansion in Singapore?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,158,16333],"tags":[229,23911],"class_list":["post-32235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation-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\/32235","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=32235"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32265,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32235\/revisions\/32265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Singapore expects an increase in foreign visitors in H2<\/h2>\n\n\n\n