Yangon Lawmaker Presses Government Over Online Gambling as Cases Persist

The movement of gambling money through mobile wallets and domestic bank accounts has emerged as a weak point in Yangon’s campaign against online betting, with a regional lawmaker urging authorities to trace the financial networks behind the operations rather than rely primarily on conventional enforcement.

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The issue surfaced during Tuesday’s Yangon Region Hluttaw session, where Kyauktada Township Constituency No. 2 representative Kyaw Min Htet challenged the regional government over whether dedicated task forces were operating effectively against online gambling.

His question pointed to a gap between the enforcement system now in place and what is still happening on the ground. The State has enacted the Online Fraud Prevention Law, followed by the establishment of committees in regions and states to tackle online scams and gambling. Yet online betting remains widespread, Kyaw Min Htet told the legislature.

Mobile Wallets Put Under Scrutiny

The lawmaker focused particularly on the financial infrastructure supporting the trade.

Gambling payments are commonly moved through mobile wallets, including KPay and Wave Money, as well as domestic bank accounts connected to those transactions, he told the Hluttaw. In his assessment, a task force capable of identifying and following those accounts could disrupt gambling operations more quickly and effectively.

Rather than treating individual betting activity as an isolated offence, the proposal would shift attention toward the payment channels that allow gambling networks to receive and move money.

Yangon Says 10-Member Committee Is Already Operating

The regional government’s response showed that Yangon already has a substantial administrative structure assigned to the problem.

Security and Border Affairs Minister Brigadier General Win Tint told lawmakers that a 10-member Yangon Region Online Fraud and Online Gambling Prevention Committee has been established under the leadership of the regional chief minister.

Its work extends down through districts, townships, wards and villages. Local administrators are being used to collect information on a daily basis, with police and administrative bodies monitoring suspected gambling activity and pursuing cases where evidence is found.

That surveillance also goes beyond gambling transactions themselves. Authorities are collecting information about people who remain in particular areas for extended periods, including details about their occupations, sources of livelihood and living circumstances, Win Tint reported.

Online Cases Rise in First Seven Months of 2026

The enforcement figures presented to the Hluttaw suggest online gambling cases make up only a small portion of the gambling prosecutions recorded by authorities, though the number of online cases in the first seven months of this year has already exceeded the total reported for all of 2025.

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Authorities pursued nine online gambling cases in 2025. The minister reported that those cases involved 27 people, while also giving a gender breakdown of 23 men and six women.

Another 605 gambling cases not classified as online involved 865 people, including 470 men and 395 women.

Between January and July 2026, enforcement against online gambling rose to 11 cases involving 29 people — 22 men and seven women. During the same seven-month period, authorities recorded 358 other gambling cases involving 501 people, comprising 268 men and 233 women.

Official 2025 Figures Contain a Discrepancy

The numbers presented during the session contain an apparent inconsistency.

While the minister was reported as putting the number of people involved in the nine online gambling cases in 2025 at 27, the accompanying gender breakdown — 23 men and six women — totals 29.

The discrepancy is contained in the figures provided during the government’s response and was not resolved in the material from the session.

Financial Tracing Proposal Still Unclear

The broader enforcement numbers show that regional authorities are already pursuing hundreds of gambling-related cases. Kyaw Min Htet’s intervention, though, was aimed at a more specific problem: whether enforcement is keeping pace with gambling operations that can collect and distribute money through ordinary digital-payment channels without the physical infrastructure associated with traditional betting.

The government did not detail during the reported exchange whether a separate financial-tracing task force would be created to pursue the mobile wallets and bank accounts identified by the lawmaker.

Instead, Win Tint emphasized the existing regional committee and the continuing work of police and administrative authorities. Monitoring and information gathering are being carried out continuously, he reported, alongside enforcement against offenders and tighter measures across Yangon Region.

That leaves the lawmaker’s central proposal — systematically following the accounts through which online gambling money moves — distinct from the surveillance and enforcement structure the government says is already operating.

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Source: thestar.com