History of Gambling in Malaysia

How gambling arrived in Malaysia: Chinese traders in the 19th century

Gambling in Malaysia did not begin with casinos or lottery terminals. Chinese traders are thought to have brought gambling to the country in the 19th century, along with the games and habits of the communities they settled in¹.

Under British colonial rule, the Malay States handled this demand in a very practical way. Rather than banning gambling outright, the government ran what was called the farm system: the right to conduct gambling was sold to the highest bidder, usually a syndicate of Chinese businessmen, which then enjoyed monopoly rights while paying fees to the government⁷. In other words, the colonial administration treated gambling as a revenue source, licensed to a private operator, much like the licensed lotteries of today.

The farms ran under real conditions. Gambling dens were individually licensed by the police, with limits on opening hours, rules on which games were allowed, age limits, a ban on employing women, and a ban on giving credit to players⁷. The permitted games were poeh, the most popular, played with dice; fan-tan, which involved betting on the correct number of hidden counters; and chap-ji-ki⁷. If you know traditional gambling games in Malaysia, you are looking at the descendants of this era.

The rules also differed by place. Gambling was illegal in Penang, a Straits Settlement, but permitted in neighboring Perak, one of the Malay States, which meant the activity simply moved across the border⁷. That patchwork, legal here and illegal there, is a theme that runs right through to modern Malaysia.

Legal gambling today: what exists and for whom

Fast forward to today, and the licensed landscape is small and specific: one casino, licensed lotteries and number forecast games, and horse racing at turf clubs⁸. Lotteries, casino games and horse racing are lawful in Malaysia, while sports betting at bookies and internet gambling are forbidden to operate in the country¹.

The one licensed casino is Resorts World Genting, which operates under a specific license and is the only legal casino in the country². It is privately run, open 24 hours a day, and was built in the 1970s in true "Las Vegas flair"¹. You can read more about it in our guide to casinos in Malaysia.

Who may take part matters here. Gambling is not restricted for tourists who are neither Muslims nor Malaysians, so non-Muslim foreign visitors can play at the casino freely¹. For Malaysian Muslims, the position is different: Sharia law forbids gambling, and Malaysian Muslims are excluded from casino-related membership of the Genting Rewards program⁵. For non-Muslim Malaysians, the casino, the 4D games and the racecourses are all open.

Online gambling sits in a greyer spot. The old laws, including the Betting Act 1953, were written long before the internet, and online betting is not directly mentioned in the legislation on the books⁹. In practice, online betting and casinos are treated as illegal, and any place used for betting, including an online platform, can be considered a "common betting house"². Discussions about amending the law have not resulted in concrete legislation, so the status quo remains². We cover this in more detail in online gambling in Malaysia and gambling rules and penalties in Malaysia.

Genting: from hill resort to casino empire

The Genting story is the spine of Malaysian gambling history. The Genting Group was founded in 1965, when its founder, the late Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, started the journey to realize his vision of a hill resort¹⁰. Genting Casino itself says its first casino opened in Malaysia in 1965³.

What is easy to miss is that the resort did not begin as a gambling destination. Genting Malaysia's own account describes a 50-year journey that began at Genting Highlands as a family holiday destination, with a 200-room hotel¹¹. The casino came as part of a broader leisure offering, and the family-resort framing is still visible today in the theme parks, cable car and shopping at Resorts World Genting.

From that single hilltop hotel, the group built Malaysia's only licensed casino and turned itself into Asia's biggest publicly traded gaming company¹². By the time Lim Goh Tong died in 2007, Genting was Malaysia's eighth-largest listed company, with interests in gambling, hotels and cruise lines from Britain to Hong Kong¹².

The road to Ulu Kali: building access in the early years

A casino on top of a mountain is only useful if people can reach it, and in the 1960s nobody could. The milestone that made Genting possible was the opening, in 1969, of an access road 25.5km long, running from Genting Sempah to the peak of Ulu Kali mountain¹³. Until that road existed, the resort site was effectively wilderness at altitude.

Building a road through mountain terrain in 1960s Malaysia was the hardest part of the whole project, and it is why the early years of Genting are remembered as much for construction as for gambling. Once the road opened, the hilltop could grow: hotel rooms, the casino floor, and eventually the whole integrated resort that stands there now, an hour's drive from Kuala Lumpur.

The access road is still the main way up for most visitors, alongside the cable car, and the practical details of getting there are covered in our Genting Highlands trip guide.

Lim Goh Tong to Lim Kok Thay: leadership across two generations

The founder's story is a classic one. Lim Goh Tong arrived in Malaysia from Fujian, China, at the age of 19, and built a construction business before betting it on a mountain resort¹⁴. When he died in October 2007, he was Malaysia's third-richest person¹².

The handover to the second generation came in 2003, when Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong handed over the chairmanship of the Genting Group to Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay¹³. Lim Kok Thay has overseen the Genting empire since taking over in 2003 from his father, who started the business as a hill resort in Malaysia in 1965¹⁵. He had already been Chairman and Chief Executive of Genting Malaysia since 17 October 1988¹¹.

Under his leadership the group went global, investing at least $5 billion in five years on gambling resort projects in the United States, the Bahamas and the Philippines¹⁴. His tenure has not been without turbulence: Genting Hong Kong, the cruise arm he controlled, collapsed in 2022 after a default warning and a rejected funding request, and he had earlier pledged almost all of his 76 percent stake in the company¹⁶.

In February 2026, Lim Kok Thay announced he would relinquish his role as group chief executive of Genting Bhd, a position he had held since 2007, while continuing as executive chairman¹⁹. He remains group deputy chairman and chief executive of Genting Malaysia and executive chairman of Genting Singapore, and holds a 44.01 percent stake in Genting via Kien Huat Realty Sdn Bhd and Kien Huat International Ltd¹⁹. Forbes put his net worth at $2.6 billion in 2021, ranking him No. 11 among Malaysia's 50 richest¹⁷.

Genting Group today: brands, properties and worldwide reach

Today the Genting Group is a conglomerate, not just a casino company. Its businesses span the following areas¹⁰:

• Leisure and hospitality
• Oil palm plantations
• Power generation
• Oil and gas
• Property development
• Life sciences and biotechnology

The group's brands include Genting, Resorts World, Genting Grand, Genting Club, Crockfords and Maxims, with tie-ups with Universal Studios, Premium Outlets, Zouk and Hilton¹⁰. It has expanded to over 18,000 hotel rooms in integrated Resorts World and leisure properties worldwide²⁰.

The group's structure is a family of listed companies: Genting Berhad, the parent, plus Genting Malaysia Berhad, Genting Plantations Berhad and Genting Singapore Limited¹⁰. Genting Malaysia was incorporated in 1980 and listed on Bursa Malaysia's Main Market in 1989¹¹.

Genting Malaysia's properties give a picture of the reach:

Today the Genting Group is a conglomerate that goes well beyond casinos: its main divisions cover leisure and hospitality, plantations, life sciences and biotechnology, property development, and energy in both oil and gas and power²¹. In leisure and hospitality it markets a suite of brands including Genting, Resorts World, Genting Grand, Genting Club, Crockfords and Maxims, and it runs tie-ups with established names such as Universal Studios, Premium Outlets, Zouk and Hilton²¹. The group's listed companies include Genting Malaysia Berhad, Genting Plantations Berhad and Genting Singapore Limited, and its Resorts World-branded properties now span Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, the United States, the Bahamas and the United Kingdom, with a property in South Korea on the way¹¹.

The UK story is striking: Genting acquired casino properties there in 2006 via Stanley Leisure, since renamed Genting UK, and by 2013 owned 41 of the 143 operating casinos in the country¹³. It has since grown into the largest casino operator in the UK¹⁴.

The group also went to Las Vegas. In 2013 it bought the unfinished Echelon site on the Strip from Boyd Gaming for less than $500 million, planning a $2 billion first phase of an Asian-themed mega-resort called Resorts World Las Vegas²³. It had to be scrutinized by Nevada's gaming regulators first, since it was not yet licensed in the state²⁴. In 2024, Genting Malaysia unveiled a multi-billion expansion plan as preparation to bid for a full commercial casino license in downstate New York²⁵.

The group marked its 60th anniversary, the Diamond Jubilee, with the tagline "Consolidate, Strengthen, Enduring"²⁰. In 2018 the family's listed companies had a combined market value of $32 billion¹⁴.

Sports Toto and the numbers-game tradition

The other great thread of Malaysian gambling history is the numbers game. Ever since Malaysia was a colony, togel, or "4D" as it is called there, has been a mainstay of the nation's gaming culture, appealing to people from all walks of life²⁶. The 4D format, where you pick digits and hope to match the drawn combination, is the direct descendant of the colonial-era numbers games.

Today the licensed operators are Magnum 4D, Sports Toto and Da Ma Cai²⁷. Sports Toto operates in compliance with the laws and regulations set by the Ministry of Finance²⁸, and Da Ma Cai is permitted to operate under the Betting (Pool-Betting) Act 1961²⁹. The Lotteries Act 1952 is what makes 4D Toto and other permitted lotteries legal⁵.

The draws themselves are tied to the racing world: Da Ma Cai draws take place at the turf clubs and off-course betting centers³⁰. The Penang Turf Club, which was among the draw venues, closed in 2025 and is no longer a venue⁴. We cover the games in detail in our guides to Sports Toto games and prizes, Magnum 4D games and prizes and Da Ma Cai games and prizes, and the wider picture in the Malaysia lottery.

Horse racing and the Penang Turf Club's closure

Horse racing is the oldest licensed gambling form in Malaysia, and it is shrinking. Betting on horse racing is legal at licensed turf clubs, with pari-mutuel (totalizator) betting under the Racing (Totalizator Board) Act 1961, but only at a land-based racecourse².

The Penang Turf Club, established in 1864, was the oldest horse racing club in Malaysia. It occupied its Batu Gantong site, next to the upscale Taman Jesselton Height, since 1939⁴. The club's members voted to end it: at a special general meeting on April 20, 2025, 318 out of 320 ordinary members supported the club's closure, with two spoiled votes, and the final race meeting was expected on May 31, 2025⁴.

The reason was money, not racing. The club had been looking for ways to realize the value of its land, estimated at RM6 billion (US$1.4 billion) for commercial use, and an open tender to sell the prime land, which closed in December 2024, drew no qualifying bids⁴. The club had already suspended racing during the pandemic-era recovery plan³¹.

The closure leaves Malaysia with two remaining turf clubs: Perak Turf Club, established in 1886, and the Selangor Turf Club, founded in 1896⁴. Both still run race meetings and off-course betting. The Selangor Turf Club operates off-course betting on races at the other clubs in Penang and Perak, including Wednesday night racing from Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Africa³². The Perak Turf Club does the same for races at the Malaysian clubs and overseas clubs in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore³³. We cover the practical side in horse racing in Malaysia.

What the Genting story does not cover

The Genting story explains the casino, but not the whole gambling culture of Malaysia. Three things sit outside it.

First, the numbers-game tradition. 4D is older than, and independent of, the Genting casino, rooted in colonial-era Chinese communities and now run by three licensed operators. For many Malaysians, a 4D ticket is what gambling means, not a trip up the mountain.

Second, the racing tradition. The turf clubs predate the casino by a century, and their pari-mutuel betting windows, now down to two clubs, are a separate licensed world with their own history, members and race days.

Third, the informal side. Malaysians can and do bet with international sportsbooks, many of which accept ringgit deposits and withdrawals, even though operating a betting business in Malaysia is illegal without a license⁹. And the traditional games, from fan-tan's descendants to Malaysian three-player mahjong and Penang rummy, carry on in homes and clubs, outside any license at all.

The through-line of the whole history is this: Malaysia has never been without gambling, but it has always been narrow about who may offer it. From the colonial farm syndicates to Genting's single casino license, from the 1952 lotteries act to the three 4D operators, the pattern is a handful of licensed operators serving a demand that never went away. For what you can actually play today, start with gambling in Malaysia.