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ASEAN Nations Team Up to Fight Illegal Online Gambling

Nick Hall

Senior Editor

Updated

05 / 02 / 2025

ASEAN Nations Team Up to Fight Illegal Online Gambling

The Association of South Eastern Nations has joined forces to combat illegal online gambling and related crime, and China is on board.

Representatives of ASEAN met in Malaysia on January 19th to discuss illegal gambling sites and the crimes that go with them, including people trafficking, drug smuggling and money laundering.

The member nations have formed a working group and a Computer Emergency Response Team based in Singapore that promises to share intelligence and co-ordinate the campaign to shut down illegal sites.

Last year the Philippines banned Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) after welcoming the industry with open arms in 2016. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr stated at the time the industry had become a playground of criminal activity that included people trafficking, torture and possibly murder.

Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos also sought to benefit from the online gambling boom, but instead they have now become one of the global centers for illegal gambling sites, and online romance and investment scam operations run by trafficked workers kept in prison-like conditions. Land-based casinos and hotels that closed down during the Covid-19 pandemic have been turned into boiler room-style operations in Cambodia, and Laos has similar issues.

Chinese citizens are often the target for these scammers and illegal and unregulated gambling sites. Now the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, has demanded action and offered assistance with funding, technical back-up and manpower to track down and close down illegal gambling sites that dupe millions of Chinese nationals every year. Online gambling is prohibited in China, but inevitably that does not dissuade these unlicensed and unscrupulous operators from targeting its citizens.

ASEAN member states include Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. These are epicenters of illegal gambling activity, and a co-ordinated effort to stamp out the bad actors has to be a good thing for the industry as a whole.

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Nick Hall

Senior Editor

Nick's passion for fast paced action has seen him test Bugattis for professional car reviews for the world's biggest car magazine, to covering the high octane world of online casinos, gambling regulation and emerging Web3 trends.