Where online gambling is licensed, suspended or banned, which law applies, what changed most recently and when we last checked. Every entry links to its source.
📌 How to read this tracker: every entry is checked against a primary source or an established trade publication, and the “Verified” date shows when. We add countries as we verify them — a missing country means not yet verified, not “legal”. This is information, not legal advice.
| Country | Status | Law & regulator | Latest change | Verified | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇧🇷 Brazil | Banned | Provisional Measure 1.394/2026; federal authorisations under Law 14.790 end. | Signed 25 Sep 2026; sites offline 6 Oct; all licences void 25 Oct 2026. Advertising and intermediation banned in every medium. [1] [2] | 10 Oct 2026 | Law guide · News |
| 🇮🇳 India | Banned | Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025; Online Gaming Rules, 2026. | Online money games banned since 1 May 2026. Advertising up to 2 years; offering or facilitating payments up to 3 years. Covers foreign operators. [1] [2] | 10 Oct 2026 | Law guide · News |
| 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | Banned | Gambling Prevention Act 2026 (replaces Public Gambling Act 1867). | In force from 1 Jul 2026. Online operation up to 7 years; advertising, sponsorship and affiliate marketing up to 3 years; VPN-enabled gambling covered. [1] [2] | 11 Oct 2026 | — |
| 🇪🇹 Ethiopia | Suspended | Ethiopian Lottery Service; Proclamation No. 1413/2026. | All sports betting licences revoked 15 Dec 2025. Relaunch planned under digital monitoring; no rules or date published. [1] [2] [3] | 18 Oct 2026 | News |
| 🇩🇰 Denmark | Licensed · reform pending | Danish Gambling Act; Spillemyndigheden. Reform bill L37. | L37 presented 7 Oct 2026, first debate 22 Oct. If passed: ad curbs from Jul 2027 and marketing unlicensed gambling becomes a criminal offence. [1] [2] | 10 Oct 2026 | Law guide · News |
| 🇪🇸 Spain | Licensed | Spanish gambling law; DGOJ. Royal Decree 813/2026 (anti-money-laundering rules). | From 28 Oct 2026 the holder of the payment method used for deposits and withdrawals must be the holder of the gambling account; six-month transition for existing players, who cannot withdraw winnings until verified. [1] [2] DGOJ consultation on a common player-risk algorithm (72-hour response rule) closes 22 Oct 2026. [3] [4] | 16 Oct 2026 | Law guide · News |
| 🇩🇪 Germany | Licensed | State Treaty on Gambling; GGL (Joint Gambling Authority). | From July 2026 approved operators may raise slot stakes from the €1 default to €3 (players 21+) or €5 (no problem-gambling signs in 90 days), with behaviour tracking. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Market guide · Slot limit |
| 🇵🇹 Portugal | Licensed | SRIJ (Serviço de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos). | 17 operators with 30 licences; record €651.9m online gross revenue in H1 2026. 113 illegal sites flagged for blocking in Q2. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Market guide |
| 🇰🇪 Kenya | Licensed | Gambling Control Act, 2025; Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA). | Licensing Regulations 2026 were suspended by the High Court on 20 July 2026 and largely reinstated in August, so licensing can proceed. The court let the authority process applications and collect the disputed fees on an undertaking to refund anything later found unlawful; reports differ on how far those fees can be enforced. The judgment due on 2 Oct 2026 was not delivered and the file was listed for mention on 12 Oct; we have not found the outcome of that hearing. [1] [2] [3] [4] | 18 Oct 2026 | Market guide · AFCON 2027 |
| 🇹🇿 Tanzania | Licensed | Gaming Board of Tanzania. | 5% excise duty on betting stakes from the 2026/27 financial year (from 1 Jul 2026), covering online betting and casino. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Market guide · AFCON 2027 |
| 🇺🇬 Uganda | Licensed | Lotteries and Gaming Act, 2016; National Lotteries and Gaming Regulatory Board. | Licences are renewed every year through the regulator’s e-licensing system, with a tax clearance certificate required. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Market guide · AFCON 2027 |
| 🇳🇬 Nigeria | Licensed · state level | Supreme Court ruling of 22 Nov 2024: states regulate gambling (Lagos: LSLGA). Reciprocity certificate of the state regulators federation (7 May 2025). | October 2026: the Lagos regulator gave mobile network operators and VAS providers 30 days to verify that gaming operators on their platforms are licensed and tax compliant, and to stop onboarding unlicensed ones. [1] [2] | 17 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇬🇭 Ghana | Licensed | Gaming Act 2006 (Act 721); Gaming Commission of Ghana licenses operators, including online categories. | 20% tax on gross gaming revenue; the 10% withholding tax on winnings was repealed from 2 April 2025. A law to license crypto service providers passed in Dec 2025. [1] [2] | 17 Oct 2026 | Licence check guide |
| 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | Licensed | Gambling Act 2005; Gambling Commission (UKGC). | Online slots stake limits: £5 per spin for players aged 25 and over (from 9 Apr 2025) and £2 per spin for 18 to 24 year olds (from 21 May 2025). [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | — |
| 🇸🇪 Sweden | Licensed | Swedish Gambling Authority (Spelinspektionen). | Ban on credit-funded gambling in force since 1 May 2026: credit cards, loans, overdrafts and buy-now-pay-later cannot be used to fund gambling. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇳🇱 Netherlands | Licensed | Gambling regulator Kansspelautoriteit (KSA). | Stricter licence-application rules since 1 Jan 2026, as the first licences, issued in 2021, come up for renewal. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇮🇹 Italy | Licensed | Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) awards online licences. | New online gambling licences run for nine years and cost EUR 7 million per vertical. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇳🇿 New Zealand | Licensing opens | Online Casino Gambling Act 2026; Department of Internal Affairs (DIA). | Up to 15 online casino licences. Operators without a licence or application must stop serving New Zealand customers from 1 Dec 2026. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇦🇺 Australia | Unlicensed services banned | Interactive Gambling Act; Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). | Unlicensed online gambling services to Australian residents are prohibited. ACMA has blocked 1,774 illegal gambling and affiliate websites since Nov 2019 (figure as of July 2026). [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇫🇮 Finland | Opening 2027 | New Gambling Act; National Police Board until mid-2027, then a new supervisory authority. | Licence applications open from 1 Mar 2026; the licensed market for betting and online slots and casino games starts 1 Jul 2027. Veikkaus keeps lotteries and physical slot machines and casino games. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇵🇭 Philippines | Offshore operators banned | Anti-POGO Act (Republic Act 12312). | Offshore gaming operations (POGOs) are banned and their existing licences revoked. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇵🇱 Poland | State monopoly | Gambling Act; Ministry of Finance, with enforcement by the National Revenue Administration (KAS). | Online casino games are reserved for the state operator Totalizator Sportowy. Private firms can only be licensed for online sports betting. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇳🇴 Norway | State monopoly | Norsk Tipping holds the monopoly. | The monopoly remains in place. Opposition parties push for a licensing model (Progress Party, June 2026); no reform has been enacted. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇨🇦 Canada (Ontario) | Licensed | Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) licenses operators; iGaming Ontario runs the market. | Record month: about C$9.5bn wagered online in Jan 2026, up 21.4% year on year. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | Law guide |
| 🇨🇦 Canada (Alberta) | Licensed | Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) regulates and the Alberta iGaming Corporation (AiGC) runs the commercial framework; operators need approval from both. | Market opened to private operators 13 Jul 2026; grace period for unregulated operators ended 13 Oct 2026. Roughly 50 approved sites (reports range from 48 to 51); unapproved sites must stop taking Alberta bets. [1] [2] [3] | 20 Oct 2026 | Our article |
| 🇨🇼 Curaçao | Licensing jurisdiction | Curaçao Gaming Authority (CGA). | Licence holders must run anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing programmes and file their AML policies with the CGA. [1] [2] | 18 Oct 2026 | — |
2026 has brought sweeping changes. Three large markets went from regulated or grey to outright bans: India in May, Bangladesh in July and Brazil in September. Each of them also targets promotion: India and Bangladesh make advertising a criminal offence, and Brazil bans advertising and intermediation in every medium. For affiliates and media, that changes what can be published, not just where players can play.
At the same time, established licensed markets are tightening their rules rather than banning. Germany let approved operators raise slot stakes but tied it to behaviour tracking. Denmark wants a whistle-to-whistle advertising ban and criminal penalties for marketing unlicensed gambling. Kenya rebuilt its licensing system under the Gambling Control Act 2025, and Tanzania added a 5% excise duty on stakes.
📥 Use this data: Download the tracker as CSV (country, status, law, latest change, sources, last verified). You may reuse it under CC BY 4.0 with a link back to this page. Suggested credit: “Cocktailspins Crypto Gambling Regulation Tracker, cocktailspins.org/crypto-gambling-regulation-tracker”. Dates to watch are in the iGaming Regulation Calendar.
We only record a status when we can link to a source for it: a regulator notice, an official gazette, a court decision or an established trade publication. Numbers and dates are copied from the source, never estimated. When a status changes, we publish a news story, update the country guide and update this table on the same day. Read our full editorial policy.
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18+ only. Unsubscribe any time. See our privacy policy.The current legal status of online gambling in each country we cover, the law and regulator behind it, the latest change and the date we last verified it against a primary source or established trade publication.
Among the countries in this tracker, Brazil (MP 1.394/2026), India (Online Gaming Act, in force 1 May 2026) and Bangladesh (Gambling Prevention Act 2026, in force 1 July 2026) ban online gambling, and Ethiopia has suspended sports betting. The Philippines bans offshore gaming operators (POGOs), and Australia prohibits unlicensed online gambling services to its residents.
Poland reserves online casino games for the state operator Totalizator Sportowy, and Norway keeps its gambling monopoly with Norsk Tipping. Finland still has a monopoly but will open licensing for betting and online slots and casino games on 1 July 2027.
Every time a verified change is published in our Worldwide iGaming News, and each country entry shows its last verification date. New countries are added once their status has been checked.
No. Where online gambling or its promotion is banned, our pages explain the law only and do not list or recommend operators.