Gambling During Lunar New Year, Tet, Diwali and Mid-Autumn: Traditions and the Law

The quick picture by country

Chinese New Year: the house-gambling tradition and where it is tolerated

Lunar New Year is the one time of year when card tables come out in living rooms from Hong Kong to Manila. The games are usually the same ones played all year: mahjong, Big Two, Niu Niu, pai gow tiles. What changes is who is sitting at the table and whether anyone is taking a cut.

In Hong Kong, the rule that covers the family table is the social gambling exemption. Gambling is illegal in the territory except for three things: horse racing, football betting and the Mark Six lottery, all approved under the Betting Tax Ordinance; licensed activities such as mahjong parlors; and gambling that is exempted because it is social in nature². A private game at home, with no operator profiting from the stakes, sits in that third category. The moment someone is running the game as a business, or you are betting with an illegal bookmaker, the exemption is gone.

That distinction matters more at New Year than at any other time, because New Year is when informal games get bigger. A CNY gathering where relatives play mahjong for small stakes is one thing. A CNY gathering where a friend of a friend is dealing banked games and keeping a percentage is another, and it is the second one that gets people charged. If you are a visitor and someone invites you to a "New Year game" in a back room with a dealer and a rake, that is not the house exception. That is an illegal gambling operation.

For Chinese citizens, the picture is much simpler and much stricter. Any form of gambling by Chinese citizens is illegal, including online gambling and gambling overseas, and that includes opening casinos overseas aimed mainly at Chinese customers⁴. Participating in cross-border gambling, whether inside or outside the border, is treated as a criminal act that public security organs will pursue³. Cross-border gambling is explicitly prohibited by Chinese law⁹. There is no New Year window in any of this. A trip to Macau or Singapore over the holiday does not change the rule for a mainland passport holder.

If you are in mainland China for the holiday, the practical answer is that the mahjong table at home is a family matter, and anything organized for profit is not. Beijing's local gambling regulation treats providing conditions for gambling for profit, or participating in gambling with relatively large stakes that does not rise to criminal punishment, as punishable under the Public Security Administration Punishments Law¹⁰. The line is drawn at profit and at stake size, not at the date on the calendar.

Tet: card games, family stakes and Vietnam's strict rules for players

Tet in Vietnam looks like Lunar New Year elsewhere: family, food, and cards on the floor after the meal. The games are usually climbing card games rather than casino games, played between relatives for small stakes. That is a private family activity, and it is not what Vietnam's gambling rules are aimed at.

What Vietnam does regulate closely is licensed gambling, and the rules there are specific. Vietnamese players at casino business points must not be subject to a request from a family member with full civil capacity, such as a father, adoptive father, mother, adoptive mother, husband, wife or biological child, asking the casino to bar them from playing⁵. The same exclusion applies if the player has asked to be barred themselves⁶. In other words, if a relative has written to the casino to keep you out, the casino has to keep you out, and that applies to Vietnamese nationals at licensed venues.

There are also rules aimed at the people running betting businesses.

• Managers, executives and employees of a betting business, along with their parents, spouses and biological children, may not bet on that same business's betting.
• Members of a race supervision council and their close relatives may not bet on races they supervise.
• Jockeys, players and referees, along with their close relatives, may not bet on events they take part in or officiate¹¹.

These are conflict-of-interest rules rather than festival rules, but they apply year round, Tet included.

For foreign players and overseas Vietnamese at electronic gaming with prizes venues, the obligations are practical. You have to carry documents proving you are eligible to play, follow the game rules, house rules and internal management rules, meet your tax obligations in full, and not use the results of the games to bet directly with each other¹². That last point is worth reading twice: using the outcome of a licensed electronic game as the basis for a side bet between players is prohibited¹². If you are a visitor planning a Tet trip that includes a licensed venue, bring your passport, expect to show it, and do not organize side bets with the people at your table.

Vietnam also polices gambling that dresses itself up as something else. Prize fishing for money, advertised on personal Facebook accounts with times, location, prize structure and entry fee, has been treated as gambling in the form of prize fishing¹³. If a Tet outing is advertised that way, it is not a fishing trip.

Diwali: dice, cards and India's state-by-state patchwork

Diwali is the festival most associated with card games in India, and Teen Patti is the game most people picture. The legal position is not one answer but many, because gambling in India is regulated state by state. Some states permit games of skill and treat private festival card games at home as a domestic matter. Others restrict or prohibit gambling for money. There is no single national rule you can rely on.

The practical consequence is that the same Diwali Teen Patti table can be fine in one state and a problem in the next. If you are visiting family for the festival, the question to ask is not "is Teen Patti legal" but "what does this state say about playing cards for money." If you are an expat or a visitor and you are invited to a Diwali game, the safest reading is the same as anywhere else in Asia: a private game between friends with no house taking a cut is one thing, and a game run for profit is another.

If you want to understand the games themselves before you sit down, the rules and hand rankings for Teen Patti are worth ten minutes, and Indian Rummy covers the other card game that turns up at Indian festival tables. Neither page is about legality; they are about how the games work, which is the part most people get wrong when they are learning at a festival table with relatives watching.

Mid-Autumn: lotteries, draws and mooncake-season promotions

Mid-Autumn is less about card tables and more about draws, lotteries and promotions. In Hong Kong, the Mark Six lottery runs through the season, and the Mid-Autumn Golden Treasure draw on Saturday, September 26, 2026 produced no first prize winner, so about HKD 74 million in jackpot carryover moved to the October 3, 2026 draw. If you are in Hong Kong for the festival, that is a legal, regulated way to take part in a mooncake-season draw.

Mainland China runs its own lottery products, and the range is wider than most visitors expect: lotto, numbers, sports guessing, traditional, instant, video, keno and other types¹⁴. The China Welfare Lottery's game list includes Double Color Ball, Kuaile 8, Qilecai, FC 3D and Guaguale¹⁵. Bet ranges on some of these products have been tightened over the years: video lottery games moved from a 2 to 99 range to 2 to 20, and quiz lottery games moved from 2 to 99 to 2 to 50¹⁶. China Basketball Lottery single-match games share a prize pool and adjustment fund with other China basketball lottery single-match games¹⁷.

One rule that applies to all of these, and that matters if you are buying tickets as a gift during the festival: the sale of tickets or payment of prizes to minors is prohibited¹⁷. If you are buying lottery tickets for a family gathering, the buyer and the winner both need to be adults.

Japan's year-end and New Year draws are a different tradition with the same shape. At BTS Nichinan, the year-end draw prizes were travel vouchers and local specialty products, with no blank tickets¹⁸. That "no blank tickets" detail is the appeal: every ticket wins something, even if it is small. If you are in Japan over the New Year period, these local draws are a legal, low-stakes way to join in.

Traditional festival games and where you see them: Thai HiLo, Sic Bo and Fish Prawn Crab

The games that turn up at festival fairs across Asia are mostly dice and tile games, and they are worth knowing by name because the legal status of each depends entirely on where you are standing.

Thai HiLo is a dice game in the Sic Bo family, played with three dice and a board of high, low and specific number bets. It shows up at Thai festival fairs and in border casinos. In Thailand itself, only one type of gambling is legal: the government lottery and state-run horse racing⁸. Everything else, including HiLo at a fair, is not.

Sic Bo and Fish Prawn Crab are the other two you will see. Fish Prawn Crab is a three-dice game with animal symbols, and it is a fixture at Chinese New Year fairs and temple festivals. Pai Gow tiles, the 32-tile domino game, is the Lunar New Year table game in Chinese communities¹⁹. If you want the full comparison of how these dice games differ, Asian dice games covers Xoc Dia, Bau Cua, Cho-Han, Chinchirorin and Bo Bing side by side.

In the Philippines, licensed casinos run the full range of table games. Newport World Resorts lists blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, pai gow, poker, slot machines, electronic table games and daily bingo²⁰. PAGCOR's register of accredited gaming system administrators includes sports betting among the licensed offerings²¹. If you are in Manila over a festival period and want a legal table, that is where it is.

Thailand's underground lottery: what it was and when it ran

Thailand's underground lottery, known as huay tai din, is the classic example of a festival-adjacent gambling tradition that the state tried to absorb rather than stamp out. It was illegal²², and it ran on the same draw numbers as the government lottery, which is why it was so hard to kill.

The payouts explain the appeal. In some southern provinces such as Phuket, the underground lottery paid THB 500 per THB 1 bet on the last three digits, and THB 70 per THB 1 bet on the last two digits²². Bookmakers also gave discounts to players and to yipua intermediaries, and those discounts were higher in the South than in other regions²².

Penalties for players during festival periods

The penalties that apply to players do not change because it is a holiday. In Hong Kong, participating in illegal gambling, for example betting with an illegal bookmaker, carries a maximum on conviction of a HKD 50,000 fine and nine months in prison¹. Betting with online casinos or online e-sports gambling platforms is illegal in Hong Kong, because neither is licensed or exempted, and any person who bets with an online gambling platform not offered by the Hong Kong Jockey Club would breach the Gambling Ordinance²³.

In Singapore, the penalty that catches people out during festival periods is the age rule. Under the Gambling Control Act 2022, an underage individual who enters an approved gambling venue during a restricted period can be fined up to S$1,500²⁵. If you are bringing younger family members along on a festival outing that passes through a casino, that is the rule to know.

In mainland China, online football betting is a criminal offense²⁶, and cross-border gambling is pursued as a criminal act³. Beijing's local regulation routes gambling that does not reach criminal punishment, including providing conditions for gambling for profit or playing with relatively large stakes, to the Public Security Administration Punishments Law¹⁰.

Resident or visitor: which rules apply to you

This is where festival gambling questions usually get their real answer, because the rules often differ by who you are rather than by what date it is.

In Singapore, a casino operator must not allow a Singapore citizen or permanent resident to enter or remain on casino premises unless that person has paid the entry levy²⁴. Foreign visitors are not subject to the levy. Singapore's legalized gambling is social gambling, betting with Singapore Pools, casino gambling at Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa, and jackpot gambling in private clubs⁷. If you are a citizen or PR planning a festival visit to the casinos, budget for the levy.

In South Korea, the foreigner-only casino rule is the one that matters. The Hyatt Regency casino is for foreigners only²⁷. Korean nationals are directed to the legal channels instead: horse racing, cycling, boat racing, poker and blackjack on the skill side, and lotteries, slot machines, roulette, video poker and baccarat on the chance side²⁸. If you are a visitor, the foreigner-only casino is open to you; if you hold a Korean passport, it is not.

In Vietnam, the split is between eligible Vietnamese players and foreign passport holders at licensed venues, with the family exclusion rules applying to Vietnamese players⁵. Foreign players and overseas Vietnamese at electronic gaming venues have their own obligations, including carrying proof of eligibility and not making side bets with each other¹².

In Hong Kong, the split is not by nationality but by channel. Anyone, resident or visitor, can bet with the Hong Kong Jockey Club on racing, football and Mark Six. Anyone, resident or visitor, who bets with an illegal bookmaker or an unlicensed online platform is breaking the law²³.

If you are planning a festival trip and want the country-level picture rather than the festival-level one, the jurisdiction guides cover the ground in more detail: Hong Kong, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, India, China, South Korea and Japan. For the games themselves, Asian gambling games is the starting point, and where Asian games are legal compares twelve jurisdictions side by side.