On 21 September 2026, the Ministry of Home Affairs (“MHA“) announced that various provisions of the Casino Control (Amendment) Act 2024 (“Amendment Act“), as summarised below, would come into effect on the same day.
Background
The Amendment Act, which was passed in Parliament on 10 September 2024, amends the Casino Control Act 2006, the Gambling Control Act 2022, and the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore Act 2022, to strengthen Singapore’s casino regulatory framework by: (i) enhancing the operational effectiveness of the casino regulatory regime; (ii) tightening the regulation of casinos and licensees; and (iii) strengthening protection for vulnerable groups. The first tranche of amendments came into effect on 30 October 2024.
For more information, please refer to our September 2024 Legal Update titled “Casino Control (Amendment) Bill Passed to Enhance Operational Effectiveness of Regulatory Regime and Strengthen Protection for Vulnerable Groups” and our October 2024 NewsBytes article titled “Changes to Casino Control Act Effective from 30 Oct 2024 to Enhance Operational Effectiveness of Regulatory Regime, Regularise Casino Entry Levies“.
Enhancing Operational Effectiveness of Casino Regulatory Regime
- Enhancing regulatory powers: The amendments provide the Gambling Regulatory Authority (“GRA“) with additional regulatory powers. Among other things:
- GRA’s regulatory scope is expanded to include betting and lotteries in casinos.
- GRA is empowered to approve gaming software, including gaming software which can be deployed on electronic mobile devices.
- GRA is empowered to prescribe any instrument or thing to be regarded as casino chips. Further, the new Casino Control (Prescribed Casino Chips) Regulations 2026, which came into operation on 21 September 2026, also prescribe electronic credits as casino chips. New wagering instruments may also be prescribed in future. This is a significant step towards cashless gaming in casinos and casino operators (“COs“) should consider how existing chip controls and anti-money laundering obligations would apply to electronic credits.
Tightening Regulation of Casinos and Licensees
- Introducing new offences for deterrence:
- The amendments introduce the following new offences to ensure continued effective deterrence against casino-related crime: (i) withdrawing a bet in a casino after the result is known has been criminalised; and (ii) the offence of using a device to record cards dealt in the course of gaming has been expanded to cover the recording of non-card games.
- The amendments also clarify that an excluded person will be liable for entering, remaining or taking part in gambling on casino premises, if it is proven that he knows, or ought reasonably to know, that he was an excluded person.
- Expanding suitability criteria for COs:
- The amendments empower GRA to consider the following factors when assessing a CO’s suitability to hold a casino licence: (i) whether the CO conducts its business (including business outside Singapore or unrelated to casino operations) in a manner which is unethical or which will bring discredit to casino gambling in Singapore; and (ii) whether there has been a systemic deficiency or failure in the CO’s internal controls or corporate governance.
- The amendments also empower GRA to take disciplinary action against a CO if it assesses that the CO’s suitability to hold a casino licence is affected due to breaches of these criteria.
- Requiring information sharing for COs: The amendments empower GRA to require COs to share information of patrons with each other, for the purposes of tackling money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing. This allows COs to take swifter action when a patron is found to pose a higher risk of such matters. COs should take note that the access and correction obligations under sections 21 and 22 of the Personal Data Protection Act 2012 do not apply to COs in relation to any personal data about an individual if such data was risk information received or accessed by the CO. This is to prevent patrons from finding out what risk information had been shared about them or from making the CO correct such information.
Strengthening Protection for Vulnerable Groups
- Criminalising breaches of family visit limits: The amendments criminalise the breach of a family visit limit, to achieve parity with breaches of other exclusion orders and visit limits that are criminalised.
- Empowering imposition of quicker, more stringent safeguards: The amendments empower the National Council for Problem Gambling (“NCPG“) to: (i) substitute an exclusion order with a visit limit and vice versa, instead of having to confirm, vary or revoke the same, which empowers quicker action by NCPG; and (ii) impose more stringent safeguards against a respondent (such as substituting a visit limit with an exclusion order) if it is more appropriate to do so.
Click on the following link for more information:
- MHA Press Release titled “Second tranche of amendments to the Casino Control (Amendment) Act 2024 to take effect on 21 September 2026” (available on the MHA website at www.mha.gov.sg)
If you have any queries on the above, please reach out to our team set out on this page.
For regional Gaming matters, please see Rajah & Tann Asia’s Gaming Practice for more information.
Contribution Note:
This write-up is contributed by the listed Contact Partners, with the assistance of Senior Associate Phang Shi Ting.
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