Which countries have a ban on online gambling?

Uh oh. You've asked a question about online gambling legislation. Online Gambling legislation has a Facebook profile, and the relationship status is: It's Complicated. Unfortunately, the issue of online gambling legality is rarely black and white; like everything* in life, it's a spectrum. The easy countries are those that have an outright ban on online gambling. The US (um, kinda; more later on the US), Turkey, the Netherlands and China are examples of these. On the other end of the spectrum there are countries that have a fully regulated online gambling system in place.  This system will include the establishment of a licensing authority, publication of the requirements and procedures around obtaining such a license, tax scheme, KYC and AML requirements, pay-in and pay-out rules (aka "closed-loop"), and auditing requirements.  The UK, France, Italy, Spain, Denmark, the Isle of Man, Australia, Malta, Gibraltar and more recently Belgium are in this group.   Slightly more complicated are the countries that only allow online gambling with their government-owned monopoly, like Portugal or Norway.  Other countries do the same thing but are less forthright about it; they don't talk about a "ban" as such, they just say you're only allowed to gamble with companies that have a license to offer such services in that country, and then they don't issue any licenses (Greece, I'm looking at you). More complicated still are the countries where there is a federal ban but state-level permission;  the US has New Jersey and Nevada (with more coming, it looks like).  Germany has Schleswig-Holstein.  If you want to play here, you better lawyer up real good, pardner. Analogous to the US's federal and state inconsistencies is the relationship European countries have with the EU.  Theoretically, the common-market dream of the EU should mean that a gambling license in one EU state would be valid in all EU states; but go ahead and try to open an Italian online gambling company on the back of a French license.  I'll be over here eating popcorn and heckling you. Then there are countries that have pretty thorough gambling legislation, but the laws don't call out anything specific regarding online gambling. The legislative landscape around online gambling is constantly moving, and I haven't even touched on the game-specific laws (poker vs sports betting vs betting exchange).  I am not a lawyer, this answer is already out of date, and the calls are coming from inside the house. *everything except Marmite.

Everybody from amateur to professional punters would like if they can register and bet from everywhere, but only a few bookmakers are enough safety and realiable to deposit and play from it. I'm fan of UK traditionally bookies like Bet365, William Hill, Paddy, Stan James, BetVictor, Ladbrokes and etc, but most of them don't operate in USA, China, Turkey or other countries where gambling laws are different and not so liberal like in UK. Take a look at these article about gambling laws sorted by regions. http://sportsbettingsitez.co.uk/online-gambling-jurisdictions/

Jim has described it fantastically. One addition to the complication of the whole thing is that it also is divided into skill-based gambling like Poker and luck based gambling like slot machines like Spanish http://tragamonedasx.com/, which also play a role in the legality of it all. Some countries allow one but not the other, some use the difference to officially ban gambling but then leave some gray area to keep it alive. Once again, it is very difficult to have a yes/no answer. The definite would be strong socialist countries like China, N. Korea etc. Everyone else uses the this industry in the ways they see fit.