Enforcement: How hard does the regulator enforce?

Enforcement under the Gambling Regulatory Authority Act, No. 17 of 2025 is beginning to take visible shape even before the licensing framework itself is complete. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka instructed all telecommunications service providers to block access to 24 identified unlicensed gambling platforms, reported effective from 6 August 2026, exercising a blocking power under the Act. General offences are addressed under section 44 of the Act, though specific penalty figures attached to particular offences, including a reported penalty of up to LKR 10 million or two years' imprisonment for operating without a digital gambling licence, have not been confirmed against the statutory text at pinpoint level. A notable asymmetry in the enforcement is that four transitioning Colombo land-based casinos' own online arms, equally unlicensed under the Digital Gambling Licence regime because no licence has yet been issued to any operator, were not included in the TRCSL blocking action against offshore platforms. This selective enforcement pattern signals a de facto grace period for domestically-based operators that has no apparent basis in the statute itself, and it is a risk factor for any new entrant assessing how enforcement might be applied once the full licensing framework, including the pending section 19 rules, takes effect. No primary GRA or TRCSL notice confirming the legal basis and precise scope of the blocking action was located; the finding rests on a single trade-press report.