Cambodia & China Ignore Online Gambling Operations For Now

Cambodia casinos struggle during pandemic

Even thou Cambodia banned all forms of online gambling in 2019 either to its own citizens or externally the city of Sihanoukville on the southern coast is still seeing online gambling operations in the form of live streaming content.

Back in 2019 when the ban was announced the city was overtaken by operators offering their content to Cambodians and Chinese gamblers from across the border, however that has now reduced significantly but it still remains.

The reason being that without those operators the casinos there and the local economy would falter, with the COVID-19 pandemic still restricting gamblers to casinos and only locals gambling and those online operators bringing in revenues for the stricken casinos.

So the government is letting it continue in the small city of some 70,000 for the time being or at least until the tourist economy recovers. To this even thou China has only recently warned of stronger penalties for online operators offering their services to Chinese nationals it goes on but is being watched to ensure it does not grow again to unmanageable levels.

Indeed it is reported that most of the online operators there are backed or protected by senior level politicians in Cambodia and so for the short to medium term both Cambodia and their biggest beneficiary to the country China are turning a blind eye to the operations until recovery is underway following the global pandemic.