Genting Highlands

Genting Highlands: Malaysia's hill resort and its only legal casino

Genting Highlands is a hill resort town built on Mount Ulu Kali in the Titiwangsa Mountains, at about 1,800 meters above sea level¹. The journey from Kuala Lumpur takes around an hour, and the altitude means the air up top is noticeably cooler and fresher than in the capital². Locals and visitors come up for the same mix of reasons: theme parks, shows, eating, shopping and, for many, the casino.

The whole resort is run as Resorts World Genting, and it holds a special place in the country. It is home to Malaysia's only legal land-based casino, operating under a specific license, and there is no other licensed casino operator in Malaysia⁸. The resort was built up from scratch by Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, the entrepreneur who created Malaysia's only licensed casino, and the company he founded, Genting Malaysia Berhad, has since grown far beyond the mountain¹⁰.

On the mountain itself, the resort spreads across several connected complexes. The lineup of hotels includes Crockfords, Genting Grand, RW Hotel (formerly Highlands Hotel), Genting SkyWorlds Hotel, First World Hotel and Resorts World Awana, covering everything from budget rooms to high-end suites³. Attractions include the Skytropolis Indoor Theme Park, the outdoor Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park, Sky VR, BigTop Video Games Park, the Eufloria garden attraction and the SkyWay cable car³.

The casino side of the resort has changed shape over the years. There were once three casinos on the mountain, but two of them, Genting Casino 1 (Circus Palace) and Genting Casino 2 (Hollywood), were closed on February 28, 2024 for facility upgrades¹². The operator said at the time that gaming operations continued as usual, with certain sections temporarily closed for improvements, and that SkyCasino was operating as normal¹². Today the gaming action is concentrated in two venues: the long-standing Genting Casino and the modern SkyCasino, which opened in 2017³.

If you are planning around the casino, one entry rule matters for Malaysians: casino entry is limited to non-Muslims, and for Malaysian citizens this is checked at the door¹⁵. Foreign visitors are not affected by that restriction. The resort also runs a permanent self-exclusion program: anyone who asks for it is barred from all Genting Highlands casinos, and the exclusion can only be lifted after six months, subject to review and approval by Resorts World Genting¹⁶.

For a fuller picture of the casino itself, see Resorts World Genting, and for the wider gambling landscape, see gambling in Malaysia.

SkyAvenue: dining, shopping and entertainment under one roof

SkyAvenue is the resort's lifestyle mall, and for most visitors it works as the main square of Genting Highlands. It houses more than 100 restaurants and retail shops, so you can spend a whole day here without going outside⁴. The mall sits right at the doorstep of the Zouk Theatre, the resort's main show venue, which makes it easy to combine dinner, shopping and a performance in one evening⁵.

The entertainment options inside and around SkyAvenue include:

• Skytropolis Indoor Theme Park, the resort's indoor rides and attractions hub³.
• Sky Arcade and Vision City, the resort's video game arcades, with a service counter at Skytropolis for the Sky Arcade⁷.
• Galaxy Arcade, located at SkyAvenue Gateway¹⁷.
• SkyCasino, on Level 2 of the mall, listed in the resort directory at T2A-01¹⁸.

Skytropolis hours were revised on July 14, 2025, and the current schedule is simple to remember: 11:00 to 21:00 on off-peak days, and 11:00 to 22:00 on peak days, with the Sky Arcade and Vision City arcades following the same adjusted hours⁷. If you are visiting during Malaysian school holidays or a long weekend, assume the peak-day schedule.

Food runs late in the casino area. The Good Luck Restaurant inside SkyCasino is open 24 hours daily, so a full meal is available whatever time you finish playing or watching a show²⁰. The resort also runs free shuttle services between its properties; the Crockfords to Genting Grand shuttle operates 9am to 5am, which covers most of a night out²².

Genting SkyWorlds Hotel: location, access and nearby venues

Genting SkyWorlds Hotel is the most convenient base for a first trip, because it sits directly connected to the resort's main attractions. The hotel is at the doorstep of the Zouk Theatre and SkyAvenue, so the mall's 100-plus restaurants and shops are effectively next door⁵.

Getting from the hotel to everything else could not be simpler: use the connecting bridge on Level 2 of the Main Building, which leads to Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park, SkyAvenue and SkyCasino⁶. The same route is signposted for guests of all wings, so you never need to go outside or wait for transport to reach the mall, the theme park or the casino floor⁶.

A few practical points for your stay:

• Theme park access: the outdoor Genting SkyWorlds Theme Park is reached through the same Level 2 bridge, so you can walk from your room to the park entrance⁶.
• Casino access: SkyCasino is inside SkyAvenue on Level 2, a short indoor walk from the hotel¹⁸.
• Shows: the Zouk Theatre is at the hotel's doorstep, and the Arena of Stars, another major concert venue, is also nearby⁴.
• Other hotels: if Genting SkyWorlds Hotel is full, the resort's other options, from First World Hotel's budget rooms to Crockfords at the top end, are all within the same connected complex or a short shuttle ride³.

During the 2024 casino upgrades, the resort even organized a shuttle service to SkyCasino at SkyAvenue so guests could keep playing while the older casino sections were closed, which gives you a sense of how compact and how service-oriented the property is¹⁴.

SkyCasino and the legal position of gambling in Malaysia

SkyCasino is the headline act. Opened in 2017 and described as ultra-modern, it is the largest casino in Malaysia, sitting inside the SkyAvenue mall near the Genting Rewards counters and Skytropolis¹⁴. Together with the older Genting Casino, it makes Resorts World Genting a two-casino resort³.

The poker room is in the SkyCasino Gold Club, and it spreads consistent No-Limit Texas Hold'em and Pot-Limit Omaha cash games, alongside Three-Card Poker, Genting Stud Poker and Progressive Texas Hold'em Poker³. Table games and slots fill out the rest of the floor, and the resort runs tournament events such as its RM2 million baccarat tournament²³. For more on the card room, see poker in Malaysia, and for the tournament scene, see Genting casino tournaments.

On the legal side, the picture is straightforward for a visitor. Gambling in Malaysia is generally restricted, with legal options limited to licensed number forecast lotteries, horse racing and the licensed land-based casino environment at Genting⁹. Lotteries, casino games and horse racing are lawful; sports betting at bookmakers and online gambling are not, and a foreign license does not make an offshore site legal for Malaysian users²⁵. Online betting and online casinos are illegal in Malaysia, and the government has been moving toward stronger enforcement against them⁸. If you want the full picture, see gambling rules and penalties in Malaysia and online gambling in Malaysia.

For Malaysians, the one rule to remember at the door is the non-Muslim entry requirement mentioned earlier; foreign visitors simply show identification. The practical risk of gambling outside the licensed environment, such as with offshore sites, is that it is illegal locally regardless of where the site is licensed²⁴.

The casino has not always been open around the clock through history. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the resort closed everything, hotels, restaurants, casino, Skytropolis, attractions and shops, in March 2020²⁷, and in May 2021 the casino was confirmed fully shut after a closure order was issued to management²⁸. Those closures are long over, and the resort has since invested in upgrades, including the 2024 casino renovation work¹².

A first visit, in short, works like this: arrive from Kuala Lumpur in about an hour, check in at Genting SkyWorlds Hotel or one of the other properties, cross the Level 2 bridge to SkyAvenue for food and shopping, ride the indoor and outdoor theme parks from 11:00, and, if the casino is your interest, walk into SkyCasino on Level 2, where the Good Luck Restaurant will feed you at any hour of the night².