eBusiness Weekly
Almost all Muslim majority countries ban gambling on religious grounds. The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Brunei, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Indonesia, Qatar, and Lebanon all have an official ban except in casinos.
In addition to religious reasons, gambling prohibitions are driven by concerns about money laundering, gambling addiction, and in the case of sports betting, issues around the integrity of sports. Sports betting has been the focus of quite a number of illegal activities such as match fixing, point shaving and bad calls at key moments.
Online gambling is banned in Singapore and Cambodia. Under Singapore’s Remote Gambling Act, all forms of online betting are illegal unless exemptions are granted but these are rarely issued and come with high minimum requirements aimed at limiting the amount people can spend on betting.
Albania passed a similar law to Uganda in October 2018.
Italy is considered to have one of the worst gambling problems in the world. The country accounts for only 2% of the global population but for almost 25% of the world’s gamblers. A sizeable percentage of Italians are classified as gambling addicts.
