Last Friday, the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced its plans to establish a new Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA). The new gambling regulator will bring all of the country’s gambling operators under one umbrella with the main aim of the bid being to “consolidate and optimize gambling regulatory resources within a single agency.” This new body will be a statutory board and it will be reconstituted from Singapore’s existing Casino Regulatory Authority (CRA).
Among the regulatory bodies that the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA) will be replacing are the Casino Regulatory Authority, the MHA’s Gambling Regulatory Unit, and the Singapore Totalizator Board. All of their resources and connections will also be moved over to the new agency. For instance, the GRA will collaborate with both the Singapore Police Forces as well as local responsible gambling organizations in order to deal with cases of illegal gambling operations.
Keeping Up with the Latest Gambling Trends
Singapore’s gambling industry is nowhere near perfect but the regulatory bodies that oversee its operations have done their jobs pretty well. Even so, there have been lots of emerging trends that are expected to have a huge impact on the industry.
As such, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) intends to review and amend gambling-related legislation by next year. The goal is to ensure that their laws are able to evolve alongside the industry’s products and models.
“For example, we will study the need to regulate products such as ‘mystery boxes’. We will also review the penalties for offences to ensure consistency across remote and terrestrial gambling.”
The MHA.
Despite the efforts to clean up the industry and make it safer for all, the MHA will still be maintaining the relatively prohibitive stance that it had with regard to gambling. This means that the ministry will be primarily championing a risk-based regulatory approach towards the existing gambling operators.
Right on Time
The Ministry of Home Affairs has noted that the country’s current regulatory framework has indeed done a commendable job especially when it comes to the delivery of outcomes pertaining to gambling-related harm and crime. However, it is also very commendable that they are very forward-thinking in their attempts to make the industry safer and more sustainable.
All these changes will involve all of the stakeholders including the gambling operators who are the center of it all. Their input will be very important in ensuring the industry adapts swiftly to the new changes.
