It is still unclear whether or not rs498872 at 11q23.3 increases the risk of developing glioma, because the previous literature has reported mixed findings. We carried out a meta-analysis with an aim to test the hypothesis that rs498872 contributes to the development of glioma. Eligible studies were identified through databases including the Chinese biomedical literature database, China national knowledge infrastructure, Science Direct, Embase and PubMed. The risk of glioma (OR and 95% CI) was evaluated with the fixed-effects model or the random-effects model. Sensitivity analysis and publication bias tests were performed to check the reliability of our findings. Ten independent populations representing three ethnicities were analyzed in this study. We found 1.17-1.34-fold increased risk of glioma associated with rs498872 genotypes (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.22-1.46; OR 1.24, 95% CI 1.14-1.35; OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.10-1.31; OR 1.17, 95% CI 1.08-1.27). In the stratified analysis by ethnicity, we also observed a significant increase in the risk of glioma in both Americans and Europeans. The results of our study support that the rs498872 polymorphism at 11q23.3 locus may be an important risk factor for glioma risk.