UAE Gaming Regulations Guide 2025 | GCGRA Licensing & Compliance

🤔 Been getting a lot of questions about gaming regulations in the UAE lately.

Many friends and LinkedIn connections ask me since I already work with a bunch of companies in the region at Signzy. Clients always ask about gaming compliance, regulatory requirements, what’s actually legal – and honestly, I kept finding myself digging deeper into research with each conversation.

Some companies think all gaming is banned. Others point to licensed activities they’ve seen. Everyone’s getting mixed signals from different sources.

So I finally sat down and went through all the actual regulations, federal laws, emirate-specific rules, recent changes – the whole mess. Turns out it’s way more nuanced than most people realize.

So, what I started as research for our clients, I decided to drop here since other people probably have the same questions. First up, here’s a quick rundown of the evolution of the UAE’s gaming regulations. 

Evolution of Gaming Regulations in the UAE

For decades, the UAE had zero tolerance for gaming. It was rooted in religious and cultural values that saw gambling as fundamentally harmful. But things started shifting behind the scenes. Studies suggested that even a modest 1.6% gaming contribution to GDP could generate $6.6 billion annually. 

The breakthrough came on September 3, 2023, when the Emirates News Agency announced the establishment of the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA). 

GCGRA and Its Impact

What made GCGRA interesting was how they positioned gaming. Rather than abandoning cultural values, they framed commercial gaming as entertainment that could be responsibly regulated. The focus became creating a “socially responsible and well-regulated gaming environment” that prioritized player safety while unlocking economic benefits.

The results came quickly. 

• January 2024: Popular weekly raffles like Mahzooz and Emirates Draw paused operations to get properly licensed under the new framework.
• July 2024: The Game LLC received the first official lottery license to operate the UAE Lottery.
• October 2024: Wynn Resorts got licensed to build the UAE’s first physical casino on Al Marjan Island in Ras Al Khaimah, scheduled to open in early 2027.

This transformation from total prohibition to a regulated framework represents one of the most dramatic shifts in UAE gaming regulations. The UAE essentially went from zero to potentially becoming a major regional gaming hub in under two years.

What Types of Commercial Gaming are Allowed in the UAE?

The GCGRA’s jurisdiction covers four main categories of commercial gaming, each with distinct characteristics and regulatory approaches.

• Internet Gaming

This is the broadest category, covering online gaming conducted via computers, mobile devices, or other digital platforms. It includes casino games like slots, roulette, blackjack, and poker, plus emerging areas like eSports betting and fantasy sports. The definition is deliberately wide, allowing the GCGRA to adapt as new gaming formats develop.

• Sports Wagering

Betting on sports event outcomes or athlete/team performance. While no sports wagering licenses have been issued yet, the regulatory framework exists to evaluate applications as the market develops.

• Lottery Operations

Traditional lottery games where players buy tickets hoping to match randomly drawn numbers or symbols for cash prizes. The UAE Lottery, operated by The Game LLC, currently represents the only licensed lottery operation in the country.

• Land-Based Gaming Facilities

Physical casinos and gaming venues. As said earlier, Wynn Resorts holds the first and currently only license in this category, with its 225,000 square foot gaming facility planned for Ras Al Khaimah representing a major test case for land-based gaming in the UAE.

UAE gaming regulations maintain that any commercial gaming activity outside these licensed categories remains illegal, with both operators and players subject to penalties for engaging with unlicensed services.

What Are the Key UAE Gaming Regulations Operators Must Follow?

Following the 80-20 principle, understanding the six core UAE gaming regulations areas will cover 80% of your compliance obligations, with the remaining 20% depending on your specific gaming activities and business model.

• Responsible Gaming Framework

The GCGRA treats responsible gaming as the foundation of everything they do. Their whole approach is built around making sure gaming stays as entertainment, not as a way to make money. 

Operators have to set up comprehensive responsible gaming programs that cover player education, marketing standards, and staff training – plus they need someone specifically in charge of overseeing all this stuff. 

Players get to set daily, weekly, and monthly deposit limits. There are cooling-off periods where players can block themselves from gaming platforms for at least 72 hours if they need a break. 

• Financial Crime Prevention

The GCGRA wants gaming operators in the UAE to have solid internal controls that can actually catch suspicious activity before it becomes a problem.

The key stuff operators need to handle:

• Strong internal systems that detect weird financial patterns
• Regular risk assessments specific to their gaming operations
• Reporting suspicious transactions to authorities when they spot them
• Proper staff training so employees know what to look for
• Detailed record-keeping that regulators can review when needed

The GCGRA works with international partners to make sure everything meets global standards, which makes sense given how much cross-border gaming activity happens these days.

• Technical Standards and Supervision

The GCGRA partnered with Gaming Laboratories International to create their technical standards, which makes sense since GLI knows what they’re doing in this space. Operators need secure encryption for player data, gaming software that actually works as intended, and payment systems that don’t break down when you need them.

The supervision approach is risk-based, meaning bigger operations get more scrutiny than smaller ones. 

• Anti-Money Laundering Under Federal Decree-Law No. 20/2018

Here’s where things get really specific. Federal Decree-Law No. 20/2018 is the big AML law that gaming operators have to follow, and it’s pretty comprehensive. This law created the National Committee for Combating Money Laundering, which is chaired by the Central Bank governor, so you know they’re taking it seriously.

Gaming operators have to handle several key areas:

• Customer Due Diligence: Comprehensive verification procedures for customers engaging in gaming activities, including identity verification and source of funds documentation
• Enhanced Due Diligence: Additional scrutiny for high-risk customers, politically exposed persons, and large transactions
• Sanctions Compliance: Adherence to UAE sanctions regulations and UN Security Council decisions on terrorism prevention
• Transaction Monitoring: Automated systems to detect unusual patterns or suspicious gaming activity
• Reporting Obligations: Mandatory reporting of suspicious transactions to the UAE Financial Intelligence Unit

The law doesn’t just apply to gaming – it covers the whole financial system. But gaming operators are specifically covered because of the cash flows and transaction patterns involved.

• Consumer Protection and Player Safety

Player protection is where the GCGRA really shows its priorities. They want players to feel confident that games aren’t rigged, payments are secure, and there’s somewhere to go when things go wrong. The licensing process weeds out operators who can’t meet these standards.

The GCGRA also focuses heavily on protecting minors and vulnerable players through age verification and responsible gaming tools.

• Reporting and Ongoing Compliance

Once you’re licensed, the work doesn’t stop. Operators have to stay in regular contact with the GCGRA and submit various reports on their operations, financials, and compliance status. The GCGRA can audit your operation whenever they want, looking at financial records, game fairness, security protocols – basically everything.

What operators need to handle:

• Regular operational and financial reporting to the GCGRA
• Immediate notification when something goes wrong – security breaches, compliance issues, whatever
• License renewals (typically annual) with continued compliance proof
• Staying current with new GCGRA guidance and implementing changes

The GCGRA expects ongoing dialogue rather than just compliance reports. If issues come up, they want operators to address them quickly rather than letting problems fester. 

Non-compliance can mean fines, sanctions, or losing your license entirely, so staying on top of requirements isn’t optional.

How to Handle UAE Gaming Regulations Compliance?

Most gaming operators are drowning in paperwork. Between AML checks, responsible gaming monitoring, and regulatory reports, compliance teams spend more time on admin than actually running the business.

This is where Signzy comes in. We’re a regtech company serving 500+ businesses globally, including 10+ Fortune 500 companies. With Signzy…

• Instead of your team manually reviewing documents for days, our platform connects to UAE government databases for instant verification. 
• Instead of compiling reports from different systems every month, everything gets pulled together automatically. 
• Instead of someone checking transaction patterns manually, the system flags unusual activity in real-time.

Basically, your compliance team stops being data processors and starts being strategic advisors. The boring stuff runs itself while they handle the decisions that actually matter.

Of course, this was just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot more we can help you with when it comes to complying with the UAE’s gaming regulations. Book a demo here to know more.