Prize-Winning Electronic Games and Casinos: Conditions for Extending the Phu Quoc Casino Pilot and the Pilot Allowing Vietnamese Players

On 26 November 2025 the Government issued Resolution 08/2025/NQ-CP closing the pilot phase for Vietnamese players at the Phu Quoc casino: from that date, eligible Vietnamese citizens may play at the Phu Quoc casino on a permanent basis, with no pilot expiry date. The same resolution opened five-year pilots for two new locations, Ho Tram and Van Don. Any advisory that still describes Phu Quoc as awaiting a pilot extension decision is out of date; the current management framework is a permanent regime in Phu Quoc, five-year pilots in Ho Tram and Van Don, and the full set of business and player conditions under Decree 03/2017/ND-CP.

What Resolution 08/2025/NQ-CP changed

Before Resolution 08/2025/NQ-CP, Vietnamese citizens could play at casinos only under a pilot mechanism limited to certain projects, and the Phu Quoc pilot had been extended by Decree 145/2024/ND-CP until the end of 31 December 2024, leaving a policy gap for most of 2025. Resolution 08/2025/NQ-CP, issued on 26 November 2025, resolved that gap in two different directions. The first direction is permanence in Phu Quoc: eligible Vietnamese citizens may play at the Phu Quoc project casino from 26 November 2025 without an attached pilot end date. The second direction is a new time-limited pilot of five years for the Ho Tram project, counted from 26 November 2025, and for the Van Don project, counted for five years from the date the project is granted its casino business eligibility certificate.

Distinguishing these two regimes matters greatly in practice for investors and players. In Phu Quoc, the compliance question is no longer whether the pilot will be extended, but whether the enterprise and the player continuously satisfy the conditions of Decree 03/2017/ND-CP. In Ho Tram and Van Don, the five-year term must enter the project’s financial model and depreciation plan, together with a scenario for what happens when the pilot ends without the policy being made permanent. Players and investors reading older market material should check the source’s publication date: every analysis written before 26 November 2025 about extending the Phu Quoc pilot has lost its reference value.

Conditions for Vietnamese players

Under Decree 03/2017/ND-CP, a Vietnamese citizen may play at a casino when all conditions are met together: aged 21 or older with full civil act capacity; having regular income of VND 10 million per month or more, or falling in personal income tax bracket 3 or above, proven by income documents as prescribed; not falling in the category banned at the written request of family members, and not being prosecuted for criminal liability or serving a sentence. The player must buy an entry ticket at the state-prescribed fee, currently VND 1 million per 24 hours per person, and that ticket is part of the play-frequency control mechanism alongside the income documentation file.

The casino enterprise bears the duty to check player conditions before admitting a player to the gaming area, to store the proof files and to maintain camera systems and player tracking records as management requires. From the player’s side, the commonly misunderstood point is that the income condition is verified at the time of entry, not promised once: a player whose income fluctuates seasonally or by project should keep a ready set of tax records, bank statements and income confirmations still in validity to avoid being turned away at the control gate. A person whose family has filed a written request to ban them from playing will not be admitted even if the income condition is met, and an enterprise that overlooks this ban list will be penalised under the penalty framework of Decree 03/2017 and related financial sector penalty documents.

Conditions for the casino enterprise and project

A casino may only be located inside an integrated service, tourism and entertainment complex project whose investment policy approval includes a casino component, and the enterprise must obtain a casino business eligibility certificate before opening to guests. Article 22 of Decree 03/2017/ND-CP sets the project’s minimum investment capital at USD 2 billion, and requires the enterprise to have disbursed at least half of its committed capital before the eligibility certificate can be granted. This is among the highest capital barriers of any service sector in Vietnam, which explains why the number of casino points open to Vietnamese players remains countable on one hand even though policy has now opened at three locations.

In operation, the enterprise must comply with limits on the number of gaming machines and tables tied to disbursed investment capital, rules on currency and payment instruments inside the casino, revenue and tax reporting duties and data connection with the managing authority. The enterprise must also manage foreign players under their own conditions and absolutely must not admit Vietnamese players at casino points not designated for Vietnamese play, such as foreigner-only casinos in other localities. Breaching casino business conditions falls in the heavily penalised violation group in the monetary and financial sector, with suspension of operations among the measures, so the compliance cost of a casino project always includes a dedicated compliance team rather than folding the work into ordinary security and front desk functions.

Prize-winning electronic games for foreigners: the parallel business line

Alongside casinos in the same ecosystem sits the business of prize-winning electronic games for foreigners at qualifying hotels and accommodation establishments, also managed by Decree 03/2017/ND-CP but with lighter capital and scale conditions. The enterprise must obtain a prize-winning electronic games business eligibility certificate, meet requirements on premises, certified gaming equipment and management personnel, and may serve only foreign players as defined by the decree. The absolute boundary of this line is that no Vietnamese citizen may play in any form, including under the name of an accompanying guest, and the enterprise must organise identity document checks at the entrance to the gaming area.

An investor weighing the two models should note the strategic difference: a casino inside a USD 2 billion integrated project is a large-capital, long-payback play, in return for access to both international guests and, at the three permitted locations, eligible Vietnamese guests; while an electronic games point inside a hotel is a small-capital, fast-deployment model whose market is limited to foreign guests staying and sightseeing. Resolution 08/2025/NQ-CP does not change the framework for the foreigner-only electronic games line, so enterprises in that line continue under Decree 03/2017/ND-CP and their current certificate conditions, and only need updated information when advising Vietnamese guests who ask about their right to play on the premises.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the conditions for extending the Phu Quoc casino pilot?

This question rests on the old context: the pilot for Vietnamese players at the Phu Quoc casino is no longer awaiting extension. Resolution 08/2025/NQ-CP of 26 November 2025 decided that eligible Vietnamese citizens may play at the Phu Quoc casino permanently from 26 November 2025, with no pilot term attached. The five-year pilot mechanism now applies only to the two new locations: Ho Tram counted from 26 November 2025 and Van Don counted from the date its project receives the casino business eligibility certificate; management at all three points follows Decree 03/2017/ND-CP.

What conditions are required to operate prize-winning electronic games for foreigners?

The enterprise must locate the gaming point inside an approved accommodation establishment or area, obtain a prize-winning electronic games business eligibility certificate under Decree 03/2017/ND-CP, and meet conditions on premises, certified gaming equipment and management personnel. The clientele is foreigners only; the enterprise must check identity documents at the gaming area entrance and absolutely must not admit Vietnamese citizens to play at these points, including in Phu Quoc, Ho Tram or Van Don outside the permitted casino area.

What capital and other conditions must an enterprise meet to invest in a casino in Vietnam?

A casino project must belong to an integrated service, tourism and entertainment complex with investment policy approval including a casino component, with total investment capital of at least USD 2 billion under Article 22 of Decree 03/2017/ND-CP, and the enterprise must disburse at least half of committed capital before receiving the casino business eligibility certificate. In operation the enterprise must also observe machine and table limits tied to disbursed capital, and check Vietnamese player conditions including age 21, regular income from VND 10 million per month and absence from the play-ban list.