Bangladesh tightens online gambling enforcement, and payment rails are now in the crosshairs

Bangladesh has replaced the Public Gambling Act of 1867 with a new law that extends beyond operators to the infrastructure around them: payments, cryptocurrency, advertising, affiliate marketing, and digital services. For PSPs, acquiring teams, and local payment aggregators, the important bit is simple: the compliance surface is no longer just the merchant.

1. The new law introduces criminal liability for organizing online gambling, including the use of VPNs, mirror sites, and related infrastructure. The penalty can reach 7 years in prison and a fine of up to 50 mln BDT.
2. Participation in illegal gambling is punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Using cryptocurrency, fake SIM cards, and fraudulent payment instruments can carry up to 10 years in prison.
3. Advertising gambling, affiliate marketing, and promotion through influencers can bring up to 3 years in prison. That matters because the law is not just targeting the merchant account anymore; it is explicitly reaching into the traffic-generation layer that high-risk businesses rely on.
4. Revenue from illegal gambling flowing through banks, MFS, e-wallets, cryptocurrency, and hawala now falls under AML legislation. Authorities can freeze bank accounts, cryptoassets, and digital wallets, and confiscate infrastructure connected to illegal activity.
5. The law also authorizes the use of AI, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), transaction monitoring, and data analysis to detect violations. In practice, that means payment flows and network behavior are both part of the enforcement toolkit.

There is already a market effect. According to market participants, local P2P providers are revising pricing, with fees of 5% and above now appearing just for incoming traffic. Some providers are changing terms almost daily, depending on risk levels and the availability of payment channels. For high-risk operators, that is the usual pattern when regulation starts hitting the rails instead of only the end merchant.