Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore
The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore is a statutory board under the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of Singapore. Formed on 1 August 2022 by amalgamating the previous Casino Regulatory Authority of Singapore and MHA’s Gambling Regulatory Unit, it regulates the management and operation of all gambling activities in Singapore.
History
Plans were announced on 3 April 2020 to form the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore by 2021. The agency will control all gambling activities in Singapore, instead of having many agencies like the Casino Regulatory Authority of Singapore and the Ministry of Home Affairs's Gambling Regulatory Unit. Meanwhile, the Singapore Police Force and Ministry of Social and Family Development deal with enforcement against illegal gambling activities and gambling issues respectively.Subsequently, MHA consulted in 2021 on new legislation aimed at forming the GRA and consolidating other gambling-related laws, which were previously scattered across different Acts with varying penalties. This was necessary because the laws were enacted at different periods of Singapore's history. The reorganisation was intended to enable better enforcement, standardise penalties and streamline gambling legislation. One particular change was the deregulation of social gambling provided that it does not pose risks to public order. Another was the adoption of a technology-neutral definition of "gambling" so that laws could cover new and emerging forms of gambling, including applications where the boundaries between gaming and gambling may be blurred.
These changes were introduced to Parliament on 14 February 2022 and passed on 11 March 2022 as the Gambling Control Act and the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Singapore Act.
The GRA was thus reconstituted from the CRA on 1 August 2022, several months after reforms to gambling laws.