“Full Brief on the Laws of Gambling in Pakistan”

1. Is Gambling Legal In Pakistan Today
2. Is Gambling Legal In Pakistan Newspapers
3. Is Gambling Legal In Pakistan Rupees

The introduction of online betting sites around 1998 was a huge break for both Pakistani bookmakers and punters. The odds were now widely known on the internet. This reduced their reliance on Mumbai bookmakers who until this point controlled cricket odds and were alleged to be heavily involved in match fixing themselves. But, it still did not make online gambling legal, it is not in Pakistan.

Many of the online betting sites are owned by UK bookmakers, and bookmaking is fully legal in the United Kingdom. www.betfair.com is a betting site that launched in 2000. They are peer to peer betting exchange that takes more volume on cricket betting than other source. Their company has a team that monitors suspicious betting activity and works closely with sports bodies, gambling regulators, police and other law enforcement. When suspecting a fix, they have numerous times refused to pay out bets until a match was cleared by the governing sports body.

Even with regulation, match fixing still occurs. I have a detailed article on match betting fixing that covers many instances including the recent spot-fixing scandal Pakistan was involved in. However, many sports bodies are in favour of legal gambling. While still Chief Executive of International Cricket Council (ICC) Haroon Lorgat commented he would like for India to legalize cricket betting to help reduce match fixing. Another former ICC chief Ehsan Mani also urged India to legalise cricket betting. While there is much talk in India, at this time cricket betting remains illegal in Pakistan and in our neighbouring countries.

Current State of Gambling in Pakistan In his opinion piece, Haroon Riaz briefly outlined the current state of gambling in Pakistan. At the present time, all types of online gambling are illegal, as are casino games at brick and mortar casinos. Gambling Laws in Pakistan Probably the most important part of the gambling law in Pakistan is that physical casinos are strictly banned. Under the Gambling Prevention Act, all forms of gaming are supposedly banned too. De jure, but not in practice. A court in Pakistan has released a donkey that had been held following a case of illegal gambling.

What Are the Gambling Laws?

The law that makes gambling illegal in Pakistan is the Prevention of Gambling Act, 1977. The penalties are up to a 1000 PKR fine and up to one year in prison for gambling. There are many articles that falsely claim small time gamblers are never arrested under this law, or they even say it does not apply to the internet.

Only in December, 2012 multiple people were arrested for gambling. It has been legally interpreted that connecting to a computer network (the internet) for online betting is in fact operating a gambling den. There are also other ways gamblers are prosecuted. One such charge is illicit conduct and another is money laundering. Both have been used to prosecute casual bettors.

Even though the laws are strict there are only a few hundred Pakistanis arrested per year for internet gambling with foreign bookmakers. This is a very small because our population is very large. Those who are careful are not caught. For those who are careful the risks are low.

How Pakistanis Gamble Online

The majority of our people do online betting with website legal in the United Kingdom. www.bet365.com is popular for the vast amount of cricket odds they offer both in-play and prematch. Betfair and Ladbrokes are two other sites Pakistani punters use. All have Pakistan banking options, and also have casino games and online poker too from the same website.

Of the many options to deposit are Skrill and Western Union. Skrill is an e-wallet that is very popular. Accounts are opened online at www.skrill.com. For players to connect their bank account they need to know their swift code. They get this by calling their bank or from this webpage. Pakistan Skrill accounts take a while to setup. Once set up, they are easy to move money between Bet365, Betfair, and Ladbrokes and to and from Pakistan bank accounts.

The other option Western Union is a little more risky when using Ladbrokes and Betfair. This is because such payments are sent in their company name, so the agent knows this is for gambling. This is why many use Hundi to transfer to these sites. They do so even though they know Hundiwalas operate illegally and could get caught at anytime. A much safer option is using BetOnline.ag.

Betonline.ag is based in Panama and accepts players from all countries, heavily targeted towards “illegal” US customers. When depositing to them via Western Union, the transfer is sent to a personal name – not a company name like Betfair and Ladbrokes use. Pakistanis can open an account on their website and then contacting live chat to ask for Western Union deposit instructions. Because a personal name is given it is then possible to use legal Western Union agents to transfer. BetOnline sends winnings to Pakistan using Western Union too.

Conclusion: The Future of Online Betting in Pakistan

Pakistan is one of the fastest multiplying countries in the world with our population increasing by more than 2% per year. It is expected by 2030 we will surpass Indonesia to become the largest Islamic country. We are also a young country due to fast birth rate. Our median age is only 20 and there are over 104 million of us age 30 or less.

The bulk of our population has been exposed to gambling that is legal under the laws of the land. They are born into a nation that has access to prize-bonds and horse race betting. The internet also makes is easy to do other forms of betting such a cricket, other sports, casino and poker. Although it means abandoning Sunnah, like it or not, gambling is now part of Pakistan culture. It is here already and online betting will only become more popular in time.

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Is Gambling Legal In Pakistan Today

In spite of Pakistan being a Muslim country, and one that has some very conservative laws towards gambling, they actually do have some forms of legal gambling here.

For instance, they allow betting on horse races, based upon a particular interpretation of Islamic law. So if there is more than one competitor and a prize is offered to the winner, then betting on the race is allowed. Iran also uses this interpretation to allow horse race betting in their country as well. (1)

They also have a type of lottery there known as prize bonds, which are like savings accounts but instead of paying interest they provide the opportunity for the holders to win prizes, and some pretty big ones at that.

So these forms of betting are legal in Pakistan, however, other forms are not legal. The laws here though, with the current one being passed in 1977, are geared toward live gambling though, or it would appear anyway, for instance laws against keeping a gaming house, or to be present in one while betting is taking place, or of course to engage in the betting yourself. (2)

This law was followed up with an amendment a year later, which made the punishments for participating in illegal gambling harsher, with penalties of up to 5 years imprisonment merely for found to be engaging in betting.

These anti gambling laws were written at a time long before online gambling surfaced, so some have assumed that it does not apply to online gambling, and only applies to gambling in a gaming house. This hasn’t proved out to be the case though, and the courts in Pakistan have interpreted the existing law to apply to betting within Pakistan in general, regardless of whether the bets are placed through international sites, as there are no Pakistani online gambling sites.

How they get around this is their view that playing online is seen as operating a gambling den or gaming house, and such, bettors are exposed to the existing law in spite of it written well before the internet existed. (3)

People actually do get arrested here for gambling online, although it’s said that the few that do are not careful enough, but this also shows that the authorities here are very serious as far as enforcement goes and anti online gambling actions are not just on paper to put on a front.

In addition, the government does block IP addresses of online gambling sites, although it’s not said to be very widespread, and given that the crackdown here is targeted at sports betting, and in particular, betting on cricket matches, a sport that is very big in Pakistan, poker sites aren’t really targeted as of yet. (4)

Poker in Pakistan

Poker hasn’t achieved much popularity at all in Pakistan. There are a couple of famous professional poker players from here, Hassan Habib, a regular on the World Poker Tour, and Owais Ahmed, who won a gold bracelet at the 2011 World Series of Poker. (5)

This hasn’t done much to promote the game in Pakistan though, and Pakistanis aren’t very well represented at all on the online poker scene, especially considering the size of the country, with over 190 million people. It’s not that gambling is all that popular here either, it’s more like a fringe thing than anything, and those on the fringe simply choose other forms of betting to gamble, and poker simply isn’t a big part of Pakistani culture yet, as it is on other countries where poker has received far more exposure.

So there is no live poker in this country, and poker players here must turn to the internet to play. There is underground gambling here but it is restricted to bookie action on sports betting, who are known to take land based bets from sports bettors. (6)

Even though poker sites aren’t generally blocked here, and the government is much more concerned with going after sports betting, it is probably wise to connect to gambling sites through a VPN, or virtual private network, then it is to connect directly.

People in Pakistan who want to play online poker might even want to use a VPN to play as well, to remove any trace of their connecting to a poker site internet address, as VPNs provide anonymity, where you simply connect to the network, another internet site, and then connect to other sites through their servers, behind the curtain so to speak.

Poker players from Pakistan do face some minor challenges as far as moving money in and out of online poker sites, although there are some fairly easy options available, such as Skrill, in addition to some other options. You can’t just use your bank account though as you can in a lot of countries and that would probably be a bad idea anyway as it does pay to be more cautious than that here.

The Future of Poker In Pakistan

Poker has been very popular for quite a few years now, globally speaking anyway, and it is true that its popularity is still growing in many regions of the world. The growth in Pakistan though has been very muted, and given that this isn’t really part of the culture here, the government is opposed to it, it’s against the law to play for money, and no one is really promoting it here, that’s not likely to change in the near future.

The internet though does spread things in a way that we never have seen though, so over time, poker might end up catching on here, although probably very slowly. With almost the entire country being Muslim, and the fact that Muslims don’t tend to gamble that much anyway, and those who do are betting on cricket and such, these excursions likely do involve a tipping point of sorts, where their desire to bet exceeds their concerns and maybe even their beliefs.

So in those terms the bar is probably set higher for poker than it is for cricket for instance, given that cricket is such a loved game here and poker really isn’t yet. As more people become familiar with poker though that could end up changing in time.

The government isn’t about to make poker playing legal anytime soon though, and far from it, so whatever growth we do see is going to have to be earned in the face of strong government opposition.

Those in Pakistan who do enjoy poker though still can play the game at international poker sites though, and for those who really enjoy poker, they are often eager to do so in spite of what the law may say about it.

References:

Is Gambling Legal In Pakistan Newspapers

1. Full Brief on the Laws of Gambling in Pakistan

2. It is OK To Bet in Pakistan and How to Do It

3. The Law for Online Betting in Pakistan

4. It is OK To Bet in Pakistan and How to Do It

5. Pakistani Poker Players

6. Pakistan Gambling

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Is Gambling Legal In Pakistan Rupees

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