Board Briefing
The Marshall Islands maintains a blanket statutory prohibition on gaming and gambling under 31 MIRC Ch.4, the Gaming and Recreation Prohibition Act 1998, which permits no commercial licensing pathway of any kind. The only lawful gambling-adjacent activity is a narrow, locally administered permit that government councils may issue for one-off, non-profit bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events. No dedicated gambling regulator sits atop this framework; enforcement runs instead through national and local police acting on statutory powers.
The Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published in November 2024, is the only secondary corroboration available for this baseline, and it independently confirms that no casinos operate in the jurisdiction. Taken together, the statute and the Mutual Evaluation Report describe a closed-market jurisdiction with a thin public record, where the prohibition's reach into online and maritime channels is read in by evaluators rather than stated in the Act's own text.
Summary
Do not enter — the Marshall Islands has a blanket statutory prohibition on gambling with no licensing pathway.
Market Opportunity
No addressable licensed gambling market exists in the Marshall Islands under current law. The general prohibition in 31 MIRC Ch.4 section 402 closes every core commercial activity class — casino, betting, lottery, poker, fantasy sports, crypto gambling, and B2B software or platform supply — across every channel, and the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published November 2024, independently confirms that no casinos currently operate in the jurisdiction.
No market-size, gross-gaming-revenue, or growth-trajectory estimate specific to the Marshall Islands was located in the available record, and the only recognised gambling-adjacent activity — the non-profit, local-council-permitted bingo, raffle, or cakewalk carve-out under section 403 — is structurally incapable of generating a commercial opportunity, being limited to one-off, not-for-profit community events. An operator should treat the market opportunity here as nil under present law rather than as a quantifiable but small or nascent market.
Licensing & Regulation
31 MIRC Ch.4, the Gaming and Recreation Prohibition Act 1998, is the sole instrument governing gambling in the Marshall Islands. Section 402 imposes a general prohibition on gaming and gambling activity, and section 403 creates the only exception: local government councils may issue per-occasion permits authorising non-profit bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events. The Act establishes no licence class, no application process, and no issuing authority for commercial gambling of any kind, and there is no business-to-business registration or supply pathway under the statute. As at 4 October 2026, no subsequent amending Act to 31 MIRC Ch.4 had been identified in the legislative record, so the prohibition and its narrow carve-out stand as the complete licensing picture for this jurisdiction. There is no licensing authority comparable to a gambling commission or ministry division; the statute is administered through the police enforcement powers set out in section 405 rather than through a dedicated regulator issuing or reviewing licences.
Regulated Activity Classes
All 20 canonical activity classes are shown for every jurisdiction so the grid is directly comparable. 13 carry an assessed status here. Where a class has no statutory activity-class assessment of its own, the status shown is the product-coverage position for that jurisdiction and is marked via product coverage — it describes whether the product can lawfully be offered, not that the regulator operates a separate licence class for it. Not yet assessed describes the state of our coverage and is not a statement that the activity is unregulated.
Player products
Supply roles
Settlement rails
Standing brief, pending expert review.
Every core commercial activity class tracked for the Marshall Islands — casino gaming, sports and event betting, lottery, poker, fantasy sports, crypto gambling, and business-to-business software or platform supply — carries a prohibited status under 31 MIRC Ch.4 section 402, across online, mobile, retail, and land-based channels alike. The Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published November 2024, independently corroborates this picture by confirming that no casinos operate in the jurisdiction. The single exception is bingo, which carries a state_monopoly_exception_to_prohibition status rather than an open or restricted status: section 403 permits local government councils to issue one-off permits for non-profit bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events, but this is not a commercial licensing category and offers no route for a for-profit operator. No other activity class carries any carve-out, exception, or restricted-but-available status under the current statutory text.
Entry Pathways
No business-to-consumer or business-to-business entry pathway exists under 31 MIRC Ch.4 for any commercial gambling activity class. The sole conditional route recognised by the statute is a local-council permit under section 403, available only for one-off, non-profit bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events; this is administered by local government councils rather than by any national licensing authority, and it is not available to a commercial operator seeking a repeatable or ongoing licence.
There is no application form, fee schedule, fit-and-proper test, or technical-standards requirement published for this permit beyond its non-profit, per-occasion, local character. Because the Act creates no licence class for casino, betting, lottery, poker, fantasy sports, crypto gambling, or software-supply activity, there is no B2B registration, white-label, or platform-supply pathway available to a technology vendor either. An operator or supplier evaluating the Marshall Islands should treat the entry-pathway landscape as fully closed outside this narrow non-profit permit.
Player Protection
No self-exclusion scheme, deposit-limit regime, reality-check requirement, or age-verification standard specific to gambling exists in the Marshall Islands. This absence follows directly from the general prohibition in 31 MIRC Ch.4: because no operator may lawfully hold a licence for casino, betting, lottery, poker, fantasy sports, or crypto gambling activity, there is no regulated sector to which player-protection obligations would attach, and no regulator has been established to impose or supervise such standards.
The narrow section 403 non-profit permit for bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events likewise carries no player-protection conditions in the available record, consistent with its character as a one-off, community, non-profit activity rather than a commercial gambling product requiring harm-mitigation infrastructure.
Consumer Protection
No gambling-specific or general consumer-protection framework bearing on gambling was identified and cross-checked for the Marshall Islands in the available record; this was outside the scope of the gambling-focused research pass underlying this baseline. Because 31 MIRC Ch.4 prohibits commercial gambling activity outright, there is no licensed sector generating consumer complaints, refund disputes, or unfair-terms questions of the kind a consumer-protection regime would typically address, and no consumer-protection regulator or instrument specific to gambling activity was located.
This category should be read as an evidentiary gap rather than as a confirmed absence of any general consumer-protection law of broader application in the Marshall Islands.
Distribution & Platform Rules
Affiliate marketing and advertising of gambling products fall within the same general prohibition that governs gambling activity itself under 31 MIRC Ch.4: processing or facilitating gambling-related activity for Marshall Islands-facing customers carries exposure under sections 402 and 404, and the statute provides no registration, carve-out, or safe-harbour regime specific to affiliates, advertising networks, or app-store distribution of gambling products.
There is no distribution-platform rule, ISP-blocking instrument, search-de-listing mechanism, or payment-provider platform restriction specific to gambling beyond the general prohibition's reach. An affiliate or distribution platform reaching Marshall Islands-connected customers should accordingly be read as falling within the same exposure as a payment processor or operator servicing the same flows, given the absence of any carve-out distinguishing intermediary roles from direct operation under the statute.
Enforcement
Enforcement of 31 MIRC Ch.4 runs through the police rather than through a dedicated gambling regulator. Section 405 gives national and local police the power to enter and search premises, close premises, detain suspects, seize gaming devices, and confiscate profits upon suspicion that an offence under the Chapter has been committed.
Section 404 sets the sanction ceiling for a breach at a misdemeanour level: a fine of up to USD 1,000 or imprisonment of up to one year, layered with a civil penalty of up to USD 1,000 per day. These statutory powers are broad on their face, but no named, dated enforcement action — a prosecution, closure, or seizure — has been identified in the available record, so the practical enforcement posture beyond the statutory text itself remains unestablished. The Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published November 2024, separately notes capacity limits in national AML/CFT coordination generally, a finding that bears on enforcement capacity for prohibited-activity offences including gaming, though it is not gaming-specific.
Extraterritorial Reach
The Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published November 2024, reads the general prohibition in 31 MIRC Ch.4 section 402 as extending to online gambling and to gambling conducted aboard cruise ships within Marshall Islands territorial waters. This is an interpretive extension recorded by the evaluators: the 1998 Act's own text does not expressly mention digital or maritime channels, so the reach described here rests on the Mutual Evaluation Report's reading of the statute rather than on express statutory language.
For an operator or affiliate, the practical implication is that the prohibition should not be assumed to be confined to physical premises located on Marshall Islands territory; a vessel transiting Marshall Islands waters, or an online service reaching Marshall Islands-connected customers, falls within the same reading. No formal state-to-state cooperation mechanism, correspondent-banking disruption, or diplomatic enforcement pattern beyond this interpretive reading was identified in the available record.
AML / CFT
The applicable AML/CFT record for the Marshall Islands is the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published in November 2024 and prepared using the 2012 FATF Recommendations and 2013 Methodology. The report confirms that no casinos, real estate agents, or dealers in precious metals or stones operate in the jurisdiction, and it does not establish a gambling-specific designated-reporting-entity status for any gambling business, consistent with the absence of a licensed gambling sector.
It separately flags DAO and Web3 Gaming structures registered in the Marshall Islands as an emerging money-laundering and terrorist-financing vulnerability, given the absence of VASP-specific supervision over such structures — a risk distinct from, and not directly tied to, the jurisdiction's gambling prohibition. The report's effectiveness findings also note capacity limits in national AML/CFT coordination generally, bearing on enforcement capacity for prohibited-activity offences including gaming, though this finding is general rather than gambling-specific.
Data Protection
Data protection obligations are not covered in this report. They are not specific to gambling licensing: the controller and processor duties that apply to a licensee are the same ones that apply to any business handling personal data in this jurisdiction, so this report links to the specialist source rather than restating it. Gambling-specific privacy duties -- player data retention, age and identity verification, marketing consent -- are covered in the player protection and operational obligations sections above.
Technical Compliance
No RNG certification regime, approved testing laboratory, game-approval process, or access-interdiction instrument such as IP blocking, DNS poisoning, or SNI filtering exists for gambling in the Marshall Islands. This follows directly from the general prohibition in 31 MIRC Ch.4: because no commercial gambling licence category exists, there is no technical-standards body with an object to certify against, and no instrument has been created to interdict unlicensed online access, since the statute's enforcement mechanism runs through police powers under section 405 rather than through technical blocking measures.
The section 403 non-profit permit carve-out for bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events likewise carries no technical-certification requirement in the available record.
Operational Obligations
No reporting, technical-certification, or responsible-gambling operational obligation exists for gambling in the Marshall Islands, because 31 MIRC Ch.4 creates no licensed operator class to which such obligations would attach. There is no data-retention duty, cross-border transfer requirement, or periodic reporting instrument specific to gambling in the available record.
The only recognised gambling-adjacent activity, the section 403 non-profit local-council permit for bingo, raffle, or cakewalk events, carries no operational-obligations regime beyond its own non-profit, per-occasion, locally administered character. An operator should not expect to find a reporting portal, technical-standards body, or ongoing compliance framework analogous to a licensed-market jurisdiction, because the statutory architecture does not contemplate an ongoing commercial licensee at all.
Cost to Operate
There is no tax rate, licence fee, or cost-to-operate structure to model for gambling in the Marshall Islands, because 31 MIRC Ch.4 creates no licensed sector to which a fiscal instrument could attach. The absence of any cost framework follows directly from the section 402 general prohibition rather than from a separate fee-setting instrument that simply sets rates at zero.
The only cost-adjacent obligation in the jurisdiction's record sits outside gambling taxation altogether, in the AML/CFT space: the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published November 2024 under the 2012 FATF Recommendations and 2013 Methodology, is the applicable compliance record, and it flags DAO and Web3 Gaming structures registered in the Marshall Islands as an emerging money-laundering vulnerability given the absence of VASP-specific supervision — a compliance exposure for registered-agent and corporate-services business rather than a cost borne by a gambling licensee, since no such licensee category exists.
Payments & Money Flow
No gambling-specific permitted-funding-methods list, withdrawal-obligation regime, or cross-border capital-control instrument targeting gambling exists in the Marshall Islands, consistent with the absence of a licensed gambling sector under 31 MIRC Ch.4. Payment processors servicing Marshall Islands-facing gambling flows are nonetheless analytically exposed: processing such payments falls within the section 402 and section 404 general prohibition and its associated civil-penalty exposure, and the statute provides no carve-out for payment intermediaries as distinct from gambling operators themselves.
A processor handling MH-facing gambling transactions is therefore exposed in the same statutory terms as a direct operator, notwithstanding that the Act does not name payment processors expressly — this is an analytical extension of the general prohibition to payment-facilitation activity rather than a standalone payments instrument.
Competitive Landscape
The Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report, published November 2024, confirms that no casinos, real estate agents, or dealers in precious metals or stones operate in the Marshall Islands. This is a binary confirmation of zero licensed or visible gambling operators rather than a quantified market-size or unlicensed-market-share estimate, and no such estimate was located in the available record.
The competitive landscape is accordingly described by the general statutory prohibition under 31 MIRC Ch.4 section 402 rather than by any operator register, concentration metric, or market-share figure: every tracked commercial activity class carries a prohibited status, and the only recognised lawful gambling-adjacent activity is the narrow non-profit local-council permit under section 403, which by its non-profit and per-occasion character generates no competitive commercial dynamic to measure.
Reform Horizon
No active consultation, draft legislation, or political commitment bearing on gambling regulation in the Marshall Islands was identified in the available record. As at 4 October 2026, no subsequent amending Act to 31 MIRC Ch.4 had been identified in the legislative record, leaving the general prohibition and its narrow section 403 non-profit permit carve-out as the complete and apparently static regulatory picture.
Nothing in the available sources — including the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering's Mutual Evaluation Report of November 2024 — signals a near-term move toward licensing or liberalisation of any tracked product class. The reform pipeline should accordingly be read as closed for now; the clearest signal that would change this picture would be a published amending Act, a formal consultation on a licensing framework, or a confirmed gambling-specific AML/CFT designation responding to the DAO and Web3 Gaming vulnerability the Mutual Evaluation Report has flagged.
Trust & verification
Provenance of this record.