Licensing and regulation: Can we get a licence?

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.