Vietnamese Casino and Card Room Gaming

Vietnam's first casino opened in October 1994 when Stanley Ho, the Macau casino tycoon, selected Vietnam as one of the areas in which to expand his gaming interests. Gambling is currently illegal for citizens of Vietnam, and foreigners are the only customers allowed to play in the casinos.

In an effort to recapture revenue from underground gambling and from Vietnamese nationals gambling in Cambodia, Macau and other Asian gaming destinations, Vietnam is considering opening up select casinos to Vietnamese citizens.

In August 2013, Vietnam permitted a select group of Vietnamese nationals to play in a casino in the Van Don economic zone. The move was part of a pilot program designed to attract foreign operators to build casinos in Vietnam, but the multibillion-dollar barrier to entry doomed the project.

In October 2013, Vietnam implemented legislation requiring casinos to be located in five-star hotels. Previously, casinos had to be in four-star hotels in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, and in three-star hotels in other parts of the country. Under the new law, the number of slot machines a casino can have now corresponds to the number of hotel rooms in the establishment. One slot machine is allowed for every five hotel rooms.

In December 2015, the Vietnamese government began work on establishing legislation that would allow Vietnamese citizens to gamble in casinos and participate in other games of chance. The legislation was adopted in November 2016 and will permit Vietnamese citizens to gamble at the two new properties in the Van Don Special Economic Zone and on Phu Quoc island.

In February 2018, the Ministry of Finance implemented new rules requiring casinos to report winnings to the ministry for taxation, install security and monitoring systems, and conduct all gambling in Vietnamese currency.