Is playing poker legal in Singapore?
I’ve been fishing around for an answer to this question and I found that it is not really all that straight forward. Whilst it sounds as if the law in Singapore regarding poker has been considerably relaxed over the past few years, there is still little information and a great deal of confusion – particularly about online poker.
The bottom line seems to be that its legal to play a ‘friendly game of poker’ in a private residence. The legislation that governs playing games for money is the Common Gaming House Act. This act provides that a poker venue cannot be open to the public and even if the venue (such as your house) is not open to the public, it cannot be used for ‘habitual’ gambling. The court has apparently interpreted ‘habitual’ to mean that your home, club or business cannot be used ‘primarily’ for gaming purposes.
Now online poker is something entirely different and does indeed seem to be illegal. There are many (high profile) online players in Singapore and even seem happy enough to publicise the fact (like Bryan Huang who I mentioned last week). I’ve find many other Singaporean players who blog about their poker experiences and none have talked about any problems with the long arm of the law. And in fact many have commented that they have never heard about anyone being prosecuted for internet gambling. So if it is fact illegal, there is certainly no enforcement of the law by the Singaporean authorities (other than a number of poker sites that can’t be accessed from Singapore).
But as I said, since this is a murky issue, let me know your thoughts or experiences …
You’re so right its totally not that straight forward, but I guess that’s a good thing right?