Gambling Abroad Rules for Korean and Chinese Nationals

Who is affected and who is not

The short answer to the question on this page is: it depends on your passport, not on where you gambled.

If you are a South Korean national, Korean criminal law follows you abroad. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs states plainly that Korean nationals who take part in gambling, online or offline, even in countries where gambling is legal, can be punished under domestic law¹. Legal analysts describe the same rule: the Criminal Act's prohibition applies to Koreans abroad, so gambling is a crime for Korean nationals even when traveling in a country where the same activity is perfectly lawful⁶.

If you are a Chinese citizen, the position is similar. Chinese authorities state that any form of gambling by Chinese citizens, including online gambling and gambling overseas, is illegal, and that opening casinos overseas to attract Chinese citizens as primary customers is illegal too⁷. The Ministry of Public Security describes participation in cross-border gambling, whether carried out inside or outside the border, as a criminal and illegal act that will be cracked down on severely according to law².

If you are neither of those, this page is mostly not about you. A foreign visitor or expat who gambles legally in Macau, Singapore, the Philippines or Cambodia is not prosecuted at home for it, because the extraterritorial rules described here attach to nationality, not to residence or to the venue. Foreigners in South Korea are in an unusual position: they are the only people who can enter most of the country's casinos, as the sections below explain. For the wider picture across the region, see our overview of gambling laws in Asia.

South Korea: the rule follows you abroad

South Korea is the clearest case in Asia of a law that travels with the citizen. The Criminal Act makes gambling by Korean nationals illegal, with narrow exceptions for temporary amusement, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirms that the ban covers gambling in foreign countries where it is legal¹. Press reporting on the country's illegal gambling problem notes that the Criminal Act allows for the prosecution of nationals who gamble abroad, even where the activity is legal under local laws⁸.

The courts have tested this and upheld it, twice in rulings that still stand:

• 2001, Philippines. A Korean national who gambled at a casino in the Philippines was convicted under Korean law. The court held that even though foreign nationals are allowed entry to casinos there, Korean criminal law applies of course to a Korean who gambled in the Philippines⁹.
• 2004, foreign casino. The Supreme Court held that gambling at a foreign casino that does not punish gambling is not thereby excused: the act remains punishable for Korean nationals¹⁰.

Commentary on Korean gaming culture sums it up the same way: the Criminal Act applies to Korean nationals who commit crimes outside the territory of South Korea¹¹.

What this means in practice: a Korean national who plays baccarat at a licensed casino in Macau or Las Vegas, where the activity is fully legal for locals and visitors alike, commits an offense under Korean law that can be prosecuted in South Korea. The venue was legal. The trip home is where the risk sits.

South Korea: overseas betting websites

The same logic applies to websites, and here the enforcement is more visible, because the betting happens from Korean soil even when the site does not.

A Supreme Court ruling from 2022 dealt with exactly this. The defendant bet on sports through an overseas gambling site, and the court held that betting from within South Korea on an overseas sports gambling site, receiving something similar to a sports promotion voting ticket through an information and communications network and hitting the results for property gain, constitutes gambling using prohibited similar acts and is punishable. The court added that the liability is the same even where the sports gambling site is operated outside South Korea by foreigners¹². In other words, the location of the operator and the server does not matter; what matters is that the player was in Korea.

Guides for Korean players report that the authorities have made it clear that those caught gambling online can face penalties, and that South Korean citizens are advised not to join international online casinos or they will face prosecution and punishment¹³. There is no licensing process for online casinos in South Korea, so there is no legal online casino for a Korean resident to use; real-money betting is not allowed, and casino games, lotteries and bingo are generally prohibited for their speculative nature¹⁴.

Two further points matter for anyone who has already bet this way.

First, the money is treated as tainted even if you won. Korean press reporting on a surge of illegal online betting noted that even if the site is based overseas, winnings from gambling are considered illegal earnings under Korean law¹⁵. Second, the tax authority does not care whether the gambling was legal. The Income Tax Act classifies property gains from participating in gambling as other income, and does not separately consider whether the act was lawful or unlawful¹⁶. A win on an overseas site is illegal earnings and taxable income at the same time.

Enforcement also reaches the plumbing. Some South Korean financial institutions have started blocking transactions to and from online gambling-related websites, so a payment to an offshore site may simply fail, or draw attention¹³. The Korea Center for Gambling Prevention reminds the public that illegal gambling carries a high risk of addiction and is punishable under relevant laws if caught¹⁷. For the wider regional picture on payment blocking, see our page on gambling payment laws, and for site blocking, blocked gambling sites and VPN use.

What is legal for Koreans at home

The ban on gambling by Korean nationals is not absolute, and the exceptions are worth knowing, because they show what the state considers acceptable.

Korean nationals are permitted to gamble only in limited circumstances, typically small wagers for entertainment, at a handful of government-approved venues such as the horse racing track in Seoul and Kangwon Land⁸. The legal forms of gambling in South Korea are the state-run ones¹⁸:

For sports betting, the state-run Sports Toto is the only legal outlet, and it has a legal limit of 100,000 won (about $75) per person; all betting outside Sports Toto is illegal¹⁵. The legal casino gambling age is 19¹⁴.

Kangwon Land deserves a specific mention because it is the exception that proves the rule. It is the only casino in the country where South Korean nationals and foreigners may both enter¹⁹, and its operator markets it as Korea's one and only casino for Koreans and foreigners alike²⁰. To enter, everyone pays a KRW 9,000 entry levy for a 24-hour period⁵. That levy is not a single tax: it breaks down into individual consumption tax of KRW 6,300, education tax of KRW 1,890 and value added tax of KRW 810⁵. For comparison with what other countries in the region charge their own citizens to walk into a casino, see our page on casino entry levies.

South Korea's casinos: what the rule does not cover

Here is the part that surprises many visitors: the rules that constrain Korean nationals are the reason foreigners have the run of the place.

South Korea has 17 licensed casinos, and 16 of them are legally reserved exclusively for foreign passport holders and expats³. Vietnamese-language casino guides put the same figure: 17 casinos, of which 16 serve foreign guests only²¹. The foreigner-only venues require a passport for entry and do not admit Koreans at all²². Press reporting makes the same point from the enforcement side: every casino other than Kangwon Land is restricted to foreign passport holders, because gambling is illegal for Korean citizens under the Criminal Act⁴.

So the extraterritorial rule on this page, which follows Korean nationals around the world, has a mirror image inside South Korea: it keeps Koreans out of 16 of their own country's 17 casinos, and hands those venues entirely to foreign visitors. A tourist from anywhere else can walk into Paradise Casino, Korea's largest foreigners-only casino, with a passport, while a Korean citizen cannot²². For more on which casinos in the region bar local citizens, see casino access for citizens, and for what documents to bring, casino ID requirements.

Mainland China: cross-border gambling

China is the second jurisdiction that follows its citizens abroad, and the official language is broader than South Korea's.

The Ministry of Public Security states that participating in cross-border gambling, and carrying it out inside or outside the border, are criminal and illegal acts that public security organs will crack down on severely according to law². The National Immigration Administration says the same: gambling abroad, online gambling, and providing funds or technical support for gambling all violate the Criminal Law and the Public Security Administration Punishment Law⁷.

There is a nuance worth knowing. Gambling has been outlawed in mainland China for decades, but no rule in Chinese law explicitly forbids gambling in a foreign country; the reach comes from the cross-border gambling crackdowns and the way offenses are charged, not from a single clean prohibition²³. In practice, authorities warn that even small bets are illegal²⁴, and local authorities repeat that cross-border gambling is strictly prohibited by Chinese law and is a criminal offense²⁵.

Online gambling is treated the same as physical gambling. Official notices state that online football betting is an illegal, criminal offense, and that organizing it, acting as an agent for it, or participating in it all constitute the crimes of opening a gambling house or gambling, punishable by administrative or even criminal liability. The same notices add a warning that matters to anyone who has lost money this way: money lost in online football betting is not protected by law and cannot be recovered²⁶. Guides for Chinese players put the practical risk bluntly: hefty fines and imprisonment are among the risks that go along with gambling online²⁷.

Poker is caught by the same net. Gambling in mainland China is absolutely illegal, cash poker rooms and casino-style tournaments are not permitted, and online gambling is also illegal, leaving online poker essentially dead in the country, with no Chinese owned or operated poker sites. Organizing or participating in cash poker is a criminal offense under Article 303 of the Criminal Law²⁸. Beijing's municipal regulation on prohibiting gambling states that organizing gambling for profit or making a living from gambling is pursued under the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China²⁹. There are a few legal poker clubs where foreigners and Chinese can play, but players must register with a passport and payouts are in points or tickets, not cash²⁸. For a fuller account of how these cases are handled, see what happens to Chinese citizens who gamble on cross-border sites.

If you are neither Korean nor Chinese

For everyone else in Asia, the answer to this page's question is generally no: your own country does not prosecute you for gambling you did legally abroad. A Singaporean who pays the entry levy and plays at Marina Bay Sands, a Japanese resident at an IR casino, a Filipino at a licensed Manila venue, or a Vietnamese who buys the entry ticket at a licensed casino has broken no law at home by gambling there. Each of those jurisdictions charges its own citizens an entry fee or levy rather than banning them, and none of them claims the power to punish nationals for gambling done legally in another country.

The distinction to hold onto is nationality versus legality. South Korea and China punish their nationals for gambling abroad regardless of its legality where it happened. Every other jurisdiction in the region punishes gambling only where the gambling itself was illegal, and only where it happened within reach of the law. If you are a foreigner living in South Korea or China, the local bans on online gambling apply to you while you are there, but they do not follow your passport home. For that side of the question, see gambling law for visitors and expats and is online gambling legal in Asia.

Worked examples

Four scenarios show how the rules bite in practice.

A Korean national plays baccarat in Macau. The casino is licensed, the bet is legal in Macau, and no Macau law is broken. But under the Criminal Act, the gambling is a crime for the Korean national, and a 2004 Supreme Court ruling confirms that the fact the foreign casino does not punish gambling does not strip the act of its illegality¹⁰. If the trip comes to the attention of the Korean authorities, prosecution at home is possible.

A Korean resident bets on sports through an overseas website. The site is operated abroad by foreigners, but the player is in South Korea. The 2022 Supreme Court ruling holds this punishable, and states that it makes no difference that the site is run outside Korea by foreigners¹². The winnings are illegal earnings under Korean law even though the site is based overseas¹⁵, and they are taxable as other income regardless of legality¹⁶. The player's bank may also have blocked the payment along the way¹³.

A Korean national gambles at a casino in the Philippines. This is the 2001 case: the casino admits foreign nationals, Philippine law is not violated, and Korean criminal law applies anyway, so the defendant was convicted at home⁹. The lesson is that the venue's own rules for foreigners do not shield a Korean passport holder.

A Chinese citizen travels abroad to gamble, or bets online at home. The National Immigration Administration treats both the same way: gambling abroad, online gambling, and providing funds or technical support for gambling all violate the Criminal Law and the Public Security Administration Punishment Law⁷. If the betting was online football betting, the money lost is not protected by law and cannot be recovered²⁶. A foreign tourist playing in the same venue, by contrast, faces nothing from Chinese law, because the rule attaches to Chinese citizenship.