Bangladesh

Bangladesh enacted the Gambling Prevention Act, 2026 (Act No. 98 of 2026), published in the Gazette Extraordinary on 1 July 2026 and effective immediately under section 1(2), repealing the Public Gambling Act, 1867 in full. The new Act is a comprehensive criminal prohibition regime rather than a licensing framework, reaching physical gambling, online and remote gambling, online betting, bookmaking, match and spot-fixing, gambling advertising and promotion, and crypto-enabled gambling-money-flow conduct. There is no licensed operator class and no regulator administering an authorisation regime; the state's posture is prohibition backed by severe custodial and financial penalties, non-bailable offence classification, and a dedicated Cyber Tribunal. Parallel financial-sector enforcement through large-scale mobile-financial-service account freezes indicates the prohibition is being actively enforced rather than left as a legislative statement.

The Gambling Prevention Act, 2026 (Act No. 98 of 2026) is primary legislation, gazetted on 1 July 2026 and in force immediately under section 1(2), which repeals the Public Gambling Act, 1867 in its entirety. It establishes offences across gambling, online gambling, online betting, bookmaking and fixing but creates no licence category, issuing authority, application process or renewal mechanism of any kind. Where licensed jurisdictions pair a prohibition on unlicensed activity with a route to lawful authorisation, this Act supplies only the prohibition: there is no mechanism by which an operator, however structured, could obtain lawful standing to offer gambling products to Bangladeshi consumers. The statute supersedes the prior colonial-era framework entirely rather than modernising it into a regulated system.

Market entry is not possible. The framework criminalises creating, operating or promoting online gambling platforms, with severe AML exposure for any operator or PSP processing Bangladeshi player payments. The underground market operates via local MFS agents and offshore platforms with significant law-enforcement risk.

Not applicable for private operators. No licensed commercial gambling exists, so there is no GGR/turnover/stake tax base for private operators. Government lottery and prize-bond revenues, and horse-racing proceeds, accrue to the state. Independent sources confirm no defined gambling tax base (e.g. GGR or turnover) exists in Bangladesh.

No legal gambling payment channel exists. Mobile financial services (bKash, Nagad, Rocket) dominate digital rails and are the primary collection layer for illegal gambling, but Bangladesh Bank has driven MFS account freezes and deployed real-time transaction-monitoring software, with the CID referring 1,000+ MFS agents for licence revocation. Cryptocurrency is fully banned (Bangladesh Bank notices under FERA 1947, MLPA 2012 and ATA 2009), so it is not a safe or legal rail. Any PSP processing BD-origin gambling transactions faces indefensible AML and regulatory exposure.

All gambling marketing to Bangladeshi consumers is prohibited. Cyber Security Ordinance 2025 s.20 expressly criminalises promoting or advertising online gambling, including directly or indirectly via Facebook, Google, YouTube, WhatsApp, X (Twitter) and TikTok. The High Court has directed urgent action against gambling advertising and, in April 2025, ordered a committee to investigate celebrity endorsements of gambling platforms. BTRC has blocked nearly 16,000 gambling-related social-media links. No advertising, sponsorship or affiliate activity is permissible.

Section 12 of the Gambling Prevention Act, 2026 criminalises the use of VPNs, mirror sites, hosting services and content-delivery-network infrastructure to facilitate gambling activity, with section 23 attaching penalties of up to seven years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Tk 5 crore to this conduct. The provision extends liability beyond the operator placing bets to the technical intermediaries and infrastructure providers whose services enable continued access to gambling platforms, including offshore-hosted ones reaching Bangladeshi users through circumvention technology. There is no certification, standards-conformance or technical-compliance regime of the kind found in licensed markets; the Act's only technical-facing provision is this facilitation offence, which functions as an enforcement lever against infrastructure rather than a compliance pathway for operators.

Section 11 of the Gambling Prevention Act, 2026 criminalises misleading promotion, false profit promises, enticing advertisements, sponsorship, affiliate marketing and referral campaigns for gambling, with section 22 fixing penalties of up to three years' imprisonment, a fine of up to Tk 50 lakh, or both. The class of persons exposed is defined broadly to include any person, institution, media outlet, digital platform, influencer, artist, player or celebrity engaging in this promotional conduct, extending liability well beyond the operator itself to the full distribution and promotional chain. There is no carve-out for platforms acting as intermediaries or for individuals promoting gambling products in a personal or celebrity capacity; the statute treats promotional participation as directly punishable conduct rather than secondary or accessory liability.

Chapter 3 of the Gambling Prevention Act, 2026 sets penalties of up to seven years' imprisonment and a fine of up to Tk 5 crore for most online offences under sections 16, 17, 20 and 23, rising to ten years and the same fine ceiling under section 24(2) for organised or money-laundering-purpose SIM, mobile-financial-service or biometric fraud. Repeat offences attract up to double the applicable maximum under section 28. All offences are cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable under section 34, with online offences tried by the dedicated Cyber Tribunal under section 32. Courts may confiscate money, property, bank accounts, mobile-financial-service accounts, digital wallets, crypto assets, servers, domains, SIMs and devices connected to an offence under section 29, investigating officers may freeze an accused's accounts with court permission under section 31(2), and gambling premises or server infrastructure may be confiscated under section 18(2). This statutory architecture runs alongside an active financial-sector enforcement campaign: the Finance Minister told Parliament on 25 June 2026 that the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit had suspended or frozen approximately 55,000 mobile-financial-service accounts linked to online gambling and digital hundi, with a further approximately 14,000 accounts marked for freezing as reported on 3 August 2026.

No liberalisation is conceivable in any foreseeable horizon; the direction is tightening. The Cyber Security Ordinance 2025 closed the online grey zone, and the government has now replaced the 159-year-old Public Gambling Act 1867 with the Gambling Prevention Act, 2026 (Act No. 98 of 2026), passed 30 June 2026 and effective 1 July 2026 — a tightening reform, not a regulatory opening. OIC membership and a ~90% Muslim-majority population entrench the prohibition. Reform is tied to the parliamentary calendar around the 13th National Parliamentary Election.