When gambling crosses borders, public policy follows

A recent decision of the Singapore High Court has put a striking question back into the spotlight for the international gambling industry: what happens when a gambling-related judgment obtained in one jurisdiction reaches the courts of another jurisdiction that takes a different view of gambling and gambling debts?

The case concerned Venetian Macau Limited, a subsidiary of Sands China, and a VIP customer, Hu Yangning. After years of gambling at casinos in Macau, Hu entered into a credit agreement with Venetian Macau in 2023 for up to HK$15 million and signed a promissory note in connection with the credit extended to her for gambling. When the debt remained unpaid, Venetian Macau sued in Hong Kong and obtained a default judgment in March 2025 for approximately HK$19.35 million, plus interest and costs. It subsequently sought to register and enforce that judgment in Singapore. However, the Singapore High Court refused.

The important point is that the court was not deciding whether the Hong Kong judgment was valid. Nor was it re-trying the underlying dispute. Instead, the question was whether Singapore should allow its own courts to be used to enforce a foreign judgment founded on a gambling debt.

Justice Philip Jeyaretnam held that it should not. Under Singapore’s Reciprocal Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, registration can be set aside where enforcement would be contrary to public policy. The court found that Singapore has a firmly established public policy against the enforcement of gambling debts, reinforced by legislation, parliamentary debates and previous case law. In particular, section 5(2) of Singapore’s Civil Law Act provides that no action may be brought or maintained to enforce claims based on gambling debts.

The fact that the debt arose in Macau was therefore not enough to overcome Singapore’s domestic policy. Indeed, the court considered the promissory note inseparable from the credit arrangement that enabled the customer to gamble. Enforcing the Hong Kong judgment would consequently undermine Singapore’s policy against gambling on credit and against using its courts to recover gambling debts.

For the gambling industry, the decision is significant because it illustrates a fundamental feature of an increasingly cross-border business. A gambling operator may be licensed and operating lawfully in one jurisdiction, but the legal consequences of that activity do not necessarily travel with the licence. This is where the Singapore decision becomes particularly interesting from a Maltese perspective.

Malta has spent decades positioning itself as a major European hub for remote gaming. Malta’s controversial 2023 reform, commonly known as Bill 55, introduced Article 56A into the Gaming Act. The provision establishes, as a matter of public policy, that Maltese courts must refuse recognition or enforcement of certain foreign judgments which undermine the legality of gaming services lawfully provided under an MGA licence. The stated legislative objective was to codify Malta’s longstanding public policy in favour of gaming operators lawfully providing services from Malta.

The issue arose particularly from Austria, where courts have awarded players refunds for gambling losses incurred with Malta-licensed operators on the basis that the operators were not licensed under Austrian law. Those players subsequently sought to enforce their Austrian judgments in Malta. Maltese courts have increasingly resisted such enforcement, ruling that certain Austrian judgments ordering refunds conflicted with Malta’s public policy.

There is therefore an intriguing common thread between Malta and Singapore: public policy can place a boundary around the recognition and enforcement of foreign gambling judgments. But the direction of that policy is fundamentally different.

Singapore’s policy says, in effect, that its courts should not become a mechanism for collecting gambling debts, even where those debts were incurred lawfully abroad. Malta’s policy, by contrast, seeks to ensure that its courts do not undermine the legal status of gambling services provided by operators holding Maltese licences.

This distinction matters as Malta is not saying that every judgment involving a gaming operator is unenforceable. The Malta Gaming Authority itself has stressed that Article 56A is narrowly framed and applies only where the foreign action conflicts with or undermines the legality of activity that is lawful under Malta’s regulatory framework.

It also explains why Malta’s position has generated considerably more controversy within the European Union. The European Commission has challenged Article 56A, while Advocate General Nicholas Emiliou concluded in April 2026 that EU law precludes a provision of this kind where it prevents recognition of another Member State’s judgment concerning an operator whose services are lawful in Malta. His Opinion stressed that Member States cannot use unilateral measures of this kind to respond to what they consider to be infringements of EU gambling rules by another Member State.

The Singapore judgment therefore offers Malta an illuminating comparison, but not necessarily a precedent. Both cases demonstrate the power of public policy in private international law. Yet they also show that “public policy” is not a universal concept producing a universal result. It reflects the values and regulatory choices of the jurisdiction asked to enforce a foreign judgment.

Dr Lina Klesper is an International Legal Assistant at PKF Malta