Best Qatar Online Casinos
Qatar is a small primarily Islamic nation located on the north coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered to the south by Saudi Arabia and to the north by the Persian Gulf. The country itself is relatively small with just 2 million residents, but the per capita GDP is nearly $150,000 making this small nation the richest in the world. You might think that with so much money, Qatar would be a hotspot for gambling and casinos. However, you would be wrong. In fact, the opposite is true - many laws in the country are influenced by its Islamic roots, and this is the case for gambling laws. Under traditional Islamic law, gambling is an evil practice. As a result, Qatar has banned all forms of gambling from casinos and slot machines to bingo, sports betting, and poker. The only legal gambling you can do in Qatar is the local lottery, but it’s really more of a raffle than anything.
Qatar Gambling Laws
Qatar is a rich nation thanks to oil – to this day, the country gets most of its wealth from this natural resource. That means that gambling revenues aren’t really needed and Qatar is pretty comfortable as it is. As a result, there really hasn’t been a strong push to legalize any gambling in the country.
Qatar is actually quite progressive in the Islamic world when it comes to traditional Sharia Law. Compared to many of its neighbors, Qatar is really not that strict. Not all parts of traditional Islamic Law are followed in Qatar, but unfortunately gambling is one area that has been strictly regulated.
Gambling is almost completely outlawed in Qatar with the exception of a single national lottery. That means online gambling is illegal too.
Qatar Online Gambling
Despite being illegal, online gambling is very popular in Qatar – most people do it anyway. Other than a few blacklisted international casino sites, the government of Qatar has barely enforced its online gambling ban. It’s very hard to enforce laws like this and the local authorities do not actively monitor online gambling activities.
That said, online gambling is still illegal and does carry some serious punishments if caught. If you are caught engaging in any form of gambling, you could be sentenced to prison for up to 3 months in addition to a fine of about $1,000. However, in our research we found no reports of anyone being punished for online gambling in Qatar.
It is possible to gamble online from inside Qatar as long as you are careful. There are still hundreds of online casino sites which are freely accessible from inside the country and accept players from Qatar.