Angelia Ong talks to Wai-Ming Yap of Stamford Law Corporation. He talks about the recently passed law regarding the prohibition of igaming in Singapore.

Singapore’s parliament has passed a law making online and remote gambling a crime. Penalties for individuals, operators and distributors range from fines of US$4,000 to $400,000 and possible prison terms up to seven years.

“Remote gambling covers even if you placed the call on the phone or on television or radio or any remote devices. that acts itself prohibits all forms of igaming or internet gaming. Whether you are operating in Singapore or out of Singapore, it’s all prohibited. This is a quite large piece of legislation. I think very unique in the world. ”

“All even support services that are helping some of these internet companies, they are not allowed to operate within Singapore. even for operators outside Singapore, if they are targeting Singaporeans, they are not allowed. The government are going to enforce that with other measures for example, they will use blocking devices, the URL; they will work with the banks and tell them which are the merchants to stop processing payments. They have a specific area where they actually target children, the young people. Young people are very internet savvy. So they have a particular section that you cannot recruit young people to help in the development of this industry and the penalty is quite severe.”

Online gambling operators have begun their retreat from the Singapore market following passage of the city-state’s new online gambling laws. The bill won’t take effect until an as yet unspecified date this year but international operators are already sent notice letters to their Singapore customers.