Sri Lanka's federal government is moving to liberalise the nation's wagering and gaming laws with new legislation introduced in parliament today.

Multiple Sri Lankan media outlets report that the federal government revealed the draft expense, named the Gambling Sports Regularization Act, on Monday 21 April.

The main stipulation of the expense will be the development of a Betting Regulation Authority tasked with controling the entirety of Sri Lankan gambling, consisting of both retail and online, as well as overseas business.

"The Gambling Sports Regularisation Act has gotten the clearance of the Attorney general of the United States and the draft Bill will now be released in the Government Gazette before being submitted to Parliament for approval," said Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa, Minister of Health and Mass Media and Cabinet Spokesperson, as reported by Sri Lankan news outlet Daily FT.

Dr Jayatissa included: "The proposed authority will act as the sole national regulator with a broad required, covering areas such as overseas betting sports on ships and in the Colombo Port City, online betting platforms and overseas gambling establishments."

Change on the horizon in South Asia

Sri Lanka's guideline of betting is, as in its neighbour across the ocean to the north in India, an extremely fragmented landscape. For the most part, gaming is strictly unlawful with a couple of exceptions.

The primary type of legal gaming in Sri Lanka is the nationwide lottery, run by the National Lotteries Board and in operation given that 1963. The lottery includes the normal draw video games seen across other nations' lotteries, in addition to scratch cards and instant win video games.

Physical casinos are extremely limited and can only be opened with approval from the federal government, with the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Colombo being the location of the vast majority of the country's gambling establishments. This includes the likes of Bally's Casino, active since 1995.

Sports wagering is a little more complicated, with the only form of betting enabled being on horse racing, and this is further limited to just being allowed at on-course bookmakers, such as at the Royal Turf Club, situated in the main city of Nuwara Eliya.

Betting on all other sports stays highly prohibited, and online betting of any sort - whether on sports, horse racing or at online casinos - is strictly forbidden, Like other markets in Asia and further affiled, nevertheless, Sri Lanka has actually been targeted extensively by abroad gaming business, both those licensed in other countries and completely unlawful ones.

The federal government's relocation to better manage Sri Lankan gambling with a brand-new main body seems to be part of a larger wind of modification seen across South and Southeast Asia in recent months.

Earlier this month, the federal government of the Indian state of Karnataka informed media that the state was considering controling wagering and had been engaging with the market on this. This would make the jurisdiction the fourth out of India's 28 states and eight union areas to launch a managed betting and video gaming market, joining Goa, Daman, and Sikkim.

Meanwhile, Thailand is also moving forward with strategies to launch legal gambling establishments in the nation as part of a push to more diversify its currently extensive entertainment and tourism sector.

However, this legislative proposition has actually dealt with hurdles, with domestic opposition pointing out possible social effects, while the intensifying tariff trade war between the US and China has actually also provided an external obstacle to get rid of.

Looking back to Sri Lanka, while the expense primarily worries the creation of a central federal government betting regulator, it could spell more liberalisations further down the line, maybe even the launch of online betting as seen in other emerging markets like Brazil.

Just like reform advocates in the likes of Brazil, Norway and Finland, to name a few, proponents of Sri Lankan video gaming law reform want to see greater taxation of the market, much better player protection, sports stability security, and a curbing of the targeting of Sri Lankans by unlicensed offshore business, to name a few aspects.

Also, change to betting of laws is obviously not concrete. The bill still needs to be subjected to examination from the 225 MPs of Sri Lanka's parliament in the legal capital city of Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, a procedure which - like all leiglsative processes - might see substantial changes and dilutions.