Yangon Region Cracks Down on Illegal Online Gambling and Spam Promotions

· Eleven Media Group Co., Ltd

During a Yangon Region parliament meeting on August 26, lawmaker U Min Thein Tun raised concerns over the surge in illegal online gambling platforms—such as slot games, 2D/3D, and fish shooting games—hosted on overseas servers. He highlighted that operators actively lure students, workers, and civil servants through phone calls and text messages while using local private bank accounts and digital payment platforms, including KBZPay, WavePay, and AYAPay, to conduct transactions.

In response, Colonel Win Tint, Minister for Security and Border Affairs of Yangon Region, outlined ongoing government countermeasures across financial and telecommunications sectors. Under the supervision of the Central Committee for Anti-Money Laundering and the Central Bank of Myanmar, authorities are collaborating with banks and mobile payment providers to detect and freeze suspicious accounts used by bookmakers. Enforcement actions in Yangon Region resulted in 27 arrests across 9 online gambling cases in 2025, followed by 29 arrests in 11 online cases and 503 arrests across 358 general gambling cases between January and July 2026.

To curb promotional spam, the Posts and Telecommunications Department (PTD) and telecom operators deploy automated SMS firewalls that block numbers distributing high-volume duplicate messages. Through these measures, authorities permanently shut down 390,978 phone numbers linked to suspicious gambling solicitations by July 30, 2026. The public can report gambling-related calls and spam messages directly to PTD at complain@ptd.gov.mm.

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