INDUSTRY OPINION 54
Wai Ming Yap*
Singapore on cusp of regulatory overhaul On 3 April 2020, the Ministry of Home Affairs of Singapore (MHA) announced that it will be reconstituting the Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA) to establish the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) by 2021. The GRA will have an expanded mandate to regulate the entire gambling landscape in Singapore and aims to consolidate and optimize gambling regulatory resources within a single agency.
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he MHA also announced that it would be amending all gambling legislation by 2021 to ensure that its regulatory mechanisms can effectively address evolving gambling products and business models, including the need to regulate products such as “mystery boxes” and reviewing the penalties for offences to ensure consistency across land-based and online gambling. It is anticipated that there will be significant changes made to the gambling regulatory landscape in Singapore by 2021 with the establishment of the GRA and the amendments to existing gambling legislation.
Asia Gaming Briefings | February 2021
Gambling regulation in Singapore is currently overseen by various government agencies. The CRA regulates the operations of Singapore’s land-based casinos, the Gambling Regulatory Unit of the Ministry of Home Affairs regulates remote gambling activities and private lotteries, while the Singapore Totalisator Board oversees the horse betting, sports betting and other betting services operated by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Singapore Pools (Private) Limited. Gambling is regulated in Singapore under a patchwork of different laws depending on whether the gambling activity is land-based or remote. For land-based
