Is online gambling legal in Vanuatu?

Legal overview

Vanuatu has had an internet gambling law since 2000. The Vanuatu Interactive Gaming Act [Cap. 261], Act No. 16 of 2000 and amended several times up to 2017, makes it an offence to conduct an interactive game wholly or partly in Vanuatu without a licence, names the Director of Customs and Inland Revenue as Regulator, and taxes licensees on gross profit, with ceilings of 18% of gross profit and 5% of turnover for fixed-odds wagering. Licensees must not let anyone under 18 play.

In 2024 the government relaunched the licence with an online application portal. Applications are processed by the Vanuatu Gaming Authority (VGA), a private company acting as exclusive agent for the Regulator under a public-private partnership. Trade press and the VGA itself describe the licence as designed for B2C operators serving international, often unregulated or pre-regulated markets, covering online casino games and sports betting. The VGA site lists a public licence search only as a feature coming soon, so licences cannot currently be verified in a public register.

For people living in Vanuatu the picture is less clear. The Act does not expressly forbid licensees from accepting local players, and it contains no offence aimed at players, yet no licensed operator could be confirmed as actively serving the domestic market. For this reason the site classifies Vanuatu as open rather than regulated: an export-oriented licence exists, but residents have no identified local online casino and play on foreign sites in an unregulated space. Any operator advertising a Vanuatu licence should be asked for its licence details, since they cannot yet be checked publicly.