UAE Gambling News: Lottery, Wynn and GCGRA Updates

Our UAE gambling news follows the licensed market as it is built: The UAE Lottery and the airport draws, the GCGRA register, Play971 and the casino resort at Wynn Al Marjan Island. Every story is checked against primary sources and dated.

The UAE created a federal gambling regulator in 2023 and has since licensed one lottery, one online operator and one casino resort. This page gathers our reporting on all three, newest first, and changes every time we publish.

Latest News

Our most recent articles, newest first. New stories appear here as soon as they are published.

Lottery and Prize Draws

The UAE Lottery has held the country’s only lottery licence since July 2024 and launched in December 2024. Big Ticket and the Dubai Duty Free draws continue under GCGRA supervision, while Mahzooz and Emirates Draw stopped their UAE draws on 1 January 2024. For every Lucky Day, Pick 3 and Pick 4 draw, see our UAE Lottery results; for how the game works, our UAE Lottery guide. Every month we also publish a UAE Lottery winners report with the results of every Lucky Day draw in that month and the winning Lucky Chance IDs.

Wynn Al Marjan Island and Ras Al Khaimah

Island 3 AMI FZ-LLC, trading as Wynn Al Marjan, received the UAE’s first casino licence on 4 October 2024, and Wynn Resorts expects to open the resort in September 2027. We track the opening date, the licence and what is known about who will be allowed to play, and we read what Wynn Resorts says about the project in each quarterly report it files with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Regulation and Licences

The General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority decides who may offer gambling in the UAE. We read its register of licensees regularly and report what changes, and we check the licence claims of brands that UAE residents see advertised. Our overview of the UAE’s gambling laws and our GCGRA guide explain the rules behind the news. In every report on the register we give the date we read it, because the register itself does not say when each licence was issued.

Key Dates in UAE Gambling

The main events since the GCGRA was created, with the article where we cover each one:

Three years in, the licensed market is still small: one lottery, one online operator and a casino resort that has yet to open.

Our Latest Checks

We do not publish a story and forget it: we go back to the primary sources, update the article when something changes and say so in it. These are the most recent checks we made, and what we found in each:

How We Report UAE Gambling News

We work from primary sources wherever we can reach them: the GCGRA’s register and announcements, operators’ own terms and press releases, Wynn Resorts’ filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and regulators’ registers abroad. Where we rely on reporting by the UAE press, we say so. Every article shows when it was published and last updated, and when a figure changes we update the article rather than publish a second one. To report a mistake or a change, see our Contact page.

Every story here is published in English and in Arabic, and we update both versions together. Company names are given as they appear in the official registers, because that is the name you will find if you check them yourself.

News about gambling is not an invitation to gamble. In the UAE, gambling is lawful only with operators licensed by the GCGRA, and Play971 is the only licensed online casino, for players aged 21 or over who are outside Dubai. If gambling is causing you problems, our guide to responsible gambling lists free, confidential support.