Online Gambling on the World Map

[K2C]

We have studied gambling laws around the world, focusing on the online casino legislation. The laws are complicated and any such study would have some shortcomings and room for improvement. Our initial goal was to cover all countries and territories, obtain information from local, reliable sources, and come up with a simple classification.

The good news is that more and more countries choose to regulate online gambling in some way, rather than simply ban it. Another piece of good news is that even when online gambling is restricted, regular players are not held responsible in most cases. Also, a large number of countries do not prohibit online gambling simply because they do not have any relevant laws.

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The link to the full report with various stats and graphs is in my signature. The report also links to the source data. I will be glad to hear any corrections, especially from the locals of the respective country. We plan to keep those tables up to date in the future and follow the legislation trends.

Additionally, we compiled the country restriction data from 600+ actual online casinos to find out which countries appear more often on the casinos' "can't register" list and produced the "best 10 countries" and "worst 10 countries" charts. Now, exclusively for Casinomeister forum readers I have reproduced those two charts only based on the casinos which are accredited here at CM.

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Those reproduced tens differed from the originals quite a bit. Surprisingly, the US players are not the ones who suffer most from inability to play in a reputable, accredited casino - the prize goes to France. Also, United Kingdom now made it to that worst 10. Another notable change is the magnitude of those percentage values in general. For example, French gamblers are able to play in about 30% of all online casinos, and only in less than 10% of the accredited ones. The same is true for other often-restricted countries, meaning that the casinos their citizens are allowed in are generally of lesser quality.

On the other side of the spectrum are Austria, Portugal, Iceland, Finland and others where people can register in more than 90% of the accredited casinos.

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Questions, comments, and critique is very welcome.

 

[Richas]

Thanks, I like the idea.

I'm not convinced it is quite right yet though. Australia for instance has limited licenced sites, different rules for different states and a ban on foreign online suppliers that most ignore. Green and the numbers you quote don't seem right.

 

[Tirilej]

I thought I would find Sweden as one of the least restricted but it wasn't.

I didn't know there was casinos on the accredited list that I couldn't sign up at, but apparently it has to be several

 

[Richas]

Looking again at this map and Austria and Australia in particular it seems to me that the data you have on sites that accept players from given locations is actually measuring operator willingness to serve those grey or black markets rather than defining of the legal position.

For example Russia has online operators banned but has more accepting online players than the UK where an open* licence regime is in place. This is because operators believe the UK will enforce their legal regime whereas Russia will not/cannot enforce their ban.

Similarly for Austria, they require local offices, a local licence but because their laws are a mess and they have a record of losing cases in the ECJ in this area because their law is a mess more will operate in Austria without a local licence than in the UK, even though the UK has issued many many more. Yet they have nearly everyone taking players as their laws are a mess.

Australia, all foreign online operators are banned.- The IGA Act 2001 makes it an offence for the operators to offer real money gambling individual states can licence some with the Northern Territories issuing the most licences and with the lowest taxes but they have not issued many. Yet Australia has more operators taking players than the UK (but less than Austria).

Regimes with clear legal arrangements that allow legal gambling - UK, France, Spain end up having sites opt out whilst those with the most chaotic legal setups, including some that ban them outright have more operators because they assume (probably rightly) that the authorities are just not going to enforce anything.
.
Very interesting figures but as I say, I think some of your legal positions are wrong - i also think the licencing split of international/local is a bit odd given that some require a local presence and those getting a licence do that even though they are mostly offshore. I suspect a requires licence/outright ban/no legislation criteria would be clearer and stop worrying about the local base requirement of any licence.


*All can apply, there is no cap on licences or requirement to be based locally.

 

[Dinahnana]

We have studied gambling laws around the world, focusing on the online casino legislation. The laws are complicated and any such study would have some shortcomings and room for improvement. Our initial goal was to cover all countries and territories, obtain information from local, reliable sources, and come up with a simple classification.

The good news is that more and more countries choose to regulate online gambling in some way, rather than simply ban it. Another piece of good news is that even when online gambling is restricted, regular players are not held responsible in most cases. Also, a large number of countries do not prohibit online gambling simply because they do not have any relevant laws.

Old Attachment (Invalid)

The link to the full report with various stats and graphs is in my signature. The report also links to the source data. I will be glad to hear any corrections, especially from the locals of the respective country. We plan to keep those tables up to date in the future and follow the legislation trends.

Additionally, we compiled the country restriction data from 600+ actual online casinos to find out which countries appear more often on the casinos' "can't register" list and produced the "best 10 countries" and "worst 10 countries" charts. Now, exclusively for Casinomeister forum readers I have reproduced those two charts only based on the casinos which are accredited here at CM.

Old Attachment (Invalid)

Those reproduced tens differed from the originals quite a bit. Surprisingly, the US players are not the ones who suffer most from inability to play in a reputable, accredited casino - the prize goes to France. Also, United Kingdom now made it to that worst 10. Another notable change is the magnitude of those percentage values in general. For example, French gamblers are able to play in about 30% of all online casinos, and only in less than 10% of the accredited ones. The same is true for other often-restricted countries, meaning that the casinos their citizens are allowed in are generally of lesser quality.

On the other side of the spectrum are Austria, Portugal, Iceland, Finland and others where people can register in more than 90% of the accredited casinos.

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Questions, comments, and critique is very welcome.

Very interesting post. So if one wants to live in one of the best countries for online gambling and we don't want to travel to New Zealand or the Nordic countries than San Marino is the place to be! I am pretty much well up on my geography but I must admit I never heard of San Marino so I learnt something today.

 

[Richas]

Very interesting post. So if one wants to live in one of the best countries for online gambling and we don't want to travel to New Zealand or the Nordic countries than San Marino is the place to be! I am pretty much well up on my geography but I must admit I never heard of San Marino so I learnt something today.

New Zealand is an odd case. They have very strict gambling laws in NZ and ban any remote gambling from NZ. Meanwhile they don't ban Internet gambling based overseas. Essentially they have no laws, no consuer protection, no interraction with the operators at all - just a health warning for NZ players.

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Now that os a pretty nice deal for operators but I am less convinced that it makes it ideal for consumers to have no legal or regulatory redress at all. No filter of operators, no checks.

Having been to San Marino for the football there is not much there really, Rimini has a better selection of pubs/restaurants and hotels.

 

[The Dude]

Thanks! Very interesting post. One thing though, the US is not completely banned - it has limited licensing. I have a vendor's license from New Jersey, and we have one accredited casino that is licensed there:
https://www.casinomeister.com/online-casinos/reviews/borgata/

 

[K2C]

Thanks! Very interesting post. One thing though, the US is not completely banned - it has limited licensing. I have a vendor's license from New Jersey, and we have one accredited casino that is licensed there:
https://www.casinomeister.com/online-casinos/reviews/borgata/

Yes, I am aware of this of course. However we thought that local online gambling laws in the 3 of the 50 states does not warrant a separate coloring or separate classfiction for the country. So we just made a note about it in the respecive column and also provided some relevant quotes from the New Jersey law. I forgot to give the link to the table with individual laws in the original post.

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it is. There are all countries there, and there is the "Source" column where you can find the law quotes and links.

 

[K2C]

Thanks, I like the idea.

I'm not convinced it is quite right yet though. Australia for instance has limited licenced sites, different rules for different states and a ban on foreign online suppliers that most ignore. Green and the numbers you quote don't seem right.

Thanks. Here is the law we have found for Australia

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Offence of providing an interactive gambling service to customers in Australia
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if:
(a) the person intentionally provides an interactive gambling service; and
(b) the service has an Australian‑customer link (see section 8).

That's why we colored it Orange (not green) on the map. Or you mean land-based gambling? Can you provide some links, please?

 

[randomiam]

great option for australians

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same everything apart from the changes in gambling laws.

run a casino from there easy or anything you like for that matter not to bad on price either 3br home is less than one in the outer suburbs of melbourne.

 

[Richas]

Thanks. Here is the law we have found for Australia

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That's why we colored it Orange (not green) on the map. Or you mean land-based gambling? Can you provide some links, please?

Yeah I should have said it should be yellow for operators, licence required not orange "local banned foreign - not banned" - the foreign based are breaking the law. I said green as I missed that on th site the initial default is land based which shows up green.

The way I characterise regimes is by four categories -

Black - where online gambling is banned, so most US states, Iran, Russia and more - including some Indian states (that you have green where a Betfair player/bookie is currently on remand that ha led to a huge drop in IPL liquidity on the exchange.

White - places where any emote operator can ply their trade - I would put NZ in that category, even though they ban an NZ provider.

Grey - where the legal position is unclear, parts of the EU like Poland, Gemany, Swden, Austria plus Canada where operators go in because the legal position is unclear or subject to ECJ appeal. Argentina is another you have as Green that is more problematic, it is regional and no national licences, the legal position is murky.

Zebra - places like the UK, Spain, Italy, France, most of Australia - where it is entirely legal for the licenced (white) but prohibited for the unlicenced (black).

 

[K2C]

Yeah I should have said it should be yellow for operators, licence required not orange "local banned foreign - not banned" - the foreign based are breaking the law. I said green as I missed that on th site the initial default is land based which shows up green.

So you are saying that one can actually register and license an online casino in Australia? On the federal level or in a particular state? Can you please give me some links?

The way I characterise regimes is by four categories -

Black - where online gambling is banned, so most US states, Iran, Russia and more - including some Indian states (that you have green where a Betfair player/bookie is currently on remand that ha led to a huge drop in IPL liquidity on the exchange.

White - places where any emote operator can ply their trade - I would put NZ in that category, even though they ban an NZ provider.

Grey - where the legal position is unclear, parts of the EU like Poland, Gemany, Swden, Austria plus Canada where operators go in because the legal position is unclear or subject to ECJ appeal. Argentina is another you have as Green that is more problematic, it is regional and no national licences, the legal position is murky.

Zebra - places like the UK, Spain, Italy, France, most of Australia - where it is entirely legal for the licenced (white) but prohibited for the unlicenced (black).

Thanks. Good thoughts. Your black is my red, your zebra is my yellow, your white is my green and light green, or actually it can be orange - and I do like those separated. And then your grey is really the tricky part.

Countries with locality-specific online gambling laws are also tricky, like Argentina you have mentioned. We put the note about the Buenos Aires law and provided the relevant sources, but the classification for the country as a whole is still "green".

 

[Richas]

So you are saying that one can actually register and license an online casino in Australia? On the federal level or in a particular state? Can you please give me some links?

Northern Territories leads the way but their websites are a mess right now as they had new (easier) rules from Jan this year

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I may be wrong about the detail of what games ar/are not allowed under those licences but it just ain't so that foreign firms are allowed, IGA explicitly akes them supplying the Aus market an offence.

 

[K2C]

I thought I would find Sweden as one of the least restricted but it wasn't.

I didn't know there was casinos on the accredited list that I couldn't sign up at, but apparently it has to be several

Actually Sweden tied the 10th place and simply did not fit into the chart You are restricted from playing in 6 accredited casinos:

Grosvenor Casinos
Bovada Casino
Sky Vegas Casino
Borgata Online Casino
Slots.Lv Casino
Bodog Casino

All of them are accepting players from a small number of countries (or even just one country), effectively banning almost the entire world, including Sweden.