Singapore online gambler to pay $10k fine

An online gambler in Singapore has been spared a jail sentence for daring to wager with a site not licensed to operate by the city-state.

Local media reported on Monday that Singapore’s High Court had handed down a verdict last month lifting the two-week jail time imposed on Lau Jian Bang, who was convicted in January this year on two counts of gambling with an internationally licensed online gambling site.

Playing on unauthorized websites was outlawed in 2015 following the passing of the Remote Gaming Act (RGA). The following year, the state-run Singapore Turf Club and the Singapore Pools were officially granted exemptions from the RGA and the two sites were launched in October and November 2016, respectively. (Pools has now taken over running the Turf Club site.)

Lau had placed a total of 13 bets amounting to SG$39k (US$28,600) with an unspecified gambling website over 2 days in October 2016. Lau then subsequently placed more bets that brought his total outlay to SG$50k. He was found guilty and ordered to serve a two-week jail sentence for each of the convictions, the sentences for which to run concurrently.

In July, Lau had appealed his conviction based on the belief that his sentence was excessive and that a high fine or community service was more appropriate. Lau’s attorneys contended that he was simply an end-user and that Singapore’s approval of the two state-run sites suggested that online gambling wasn’t the great evil that prosecutors had claimed.

Justice Aedit Abdullah ruled that Lau will not have to serve jail time and instead will be required to pay the maximum fine of SG$5k for each of his two convictions. Aedit stated that his view of the harm caused by violations of the RGA was “not such as to attract imprisonment as a matter of course for first-time offenders.”

Aedit said that repeat offenders might need tougher measures but suggested the courts should start with a SG$1k fine for first-time offenders, with penalties rising with the size of the wagers to a level that would ensure the penalty was sufficient to deter future crimes.

Aedit overruled prosecutors’ arguments that a prison sentence was suitable given that the scale of Lau’s wagering dramatically exceeded the maximum financial penalty. Aedit said it was up to Singapore’s Parliament to either increase the maximum fine or couple the existing fine with “instruction and education on responsible gambling.”

Online casinos may want to sit up and take note of such rulings and ensure that they are not going to land in trouble by accepting wagers from players come from geographic areas they are not licensed to operate in.