Tumor necrosis factor β (TNF-β) 252 A/G polymorphism has been implicated to be associated with risk of gastric cancer, but previous studies showed inconsistent and inconclusive results. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to assess the association between TNF-β 252 A/G polymorphism and gastric cancer risk. Relevant studies were searched from PubMed database. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated to evaluate the strength of the associations between TNF-β 252 A/G polymorphism and gastric cancer risk. Overall, 11 individual case-control studies with 2,270 cases and 4,404 controls were included in the final meta-analysis. Meta-analysis of total 11 studies showed that TNF-β 252 A/G polymorphism was associated with the risk of gastric cancer (G vs. A: OR = 1.10, 95% CI 1.02-1.19, P = 0.015; GG/AG vs. AA: OR = 1.21, 95% CI 1.00-1.47, P = 0.049). Subgroup analysis by ethnicity showed that TNF-β 252 A/G polymorphism was only associated with the risk of gastric cancer in Asians, but not Caucasians. The findings from the current meta-analysis suggest that TNF-β 252 A/G polymorphism is associated with the risk of gastric cancer, especially in Asians.