About the project

The Singapore Academy of Law’s  Law Reform Committee highlighted ambiguities in the law due to technological developments in the field of gaming and gambling, and suggested it was timely to review existing gambling legislation. The Committee recommended that legislative amendments in relation to online gambling should consider and deal with the following issues, among others:

• There should be clarity on the types of online gambling and ancillary activities that should be addressed by legislation.
• Consideration should be given to whether criminal sanctions should be imposed on the operators, Internet service providers (intermediaries), individual gamblers, advertisers and/or financial intermediaries who are either engaged directly or who facilitate the prohibited activities.
• The extension of the enforcement of criminal sanctions against persons that are not domiciled in Singapore and who are engaged in or who facilitate prohibited activities here should be considered.
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Project status: Completed

• The report was published in July 2010.
• The report was referred to in Parliament on 15 November 2012 by Member of Parliament Zainal Sapari during the Second Reading of the Casino Control (Amendment) Bill (Bill No 28 of 2012); and on 7 October 2014 by Member of Parliament Pritam Singh during the Second Reading of the Remote Gambling Bill (Bill No 23 of 2014), which was enacted on that day and came into force as the Remote Gambling Act 2014 (No 34 of 2014) on 2 February 2015. In the latter Act, Parliament decided to impose criminal liability on all persons involved in remote gambling, including individual gamblers, facilitators, agents and runners, and operators. The Act also provides that websites and payment transactions may be blocked, and advertising banned. Some forms of remote gambling may be exempted under stringent conditions.
• The report was referred to by the High Court in Peh Hai Yam v Public Prosecutor [2017] SGHC 69, [2017] 4 Singapore Law Reports [SLR] 454 at paragraphs 57 and 58, the Court distinguishing statements made in it from the facts of the case.

Areas of law

◾ Entertainment law

Click on the image above to view the report

Last updated 28 May 2019