It is known that the development of resistance of breast cancer cells to chemotherapy is at least partially mediated by the upregulation of long non-coding RNA DSCAM antisense RNA 1 (DSCAM-AS1). Therefore, DSCAM-AS1 may play a role in cancer biology. The differential expression of DSCAM-AS1 and miR-124 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was analyzed by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) Tukey test was used to analyze the differences in gene expression and cell proliferation in HCC cell lines. Expression levels of DSCAM-AS1 and miR-124 were compared between HCC and paired non-tumor tissues by paired t-test. The effects of transfections on SNU-449 and SNU-398 cell proliferation were analyzed by CCK-8 assay. DSCAM-AS1 was upregulated, while miR-124 was downregulated in HCC tissues. DSCAM-AS1 and miR-124 were inversely correlated across HCC tissues but not normal tissues. DSCAM-AS1 level increased, while miR-124 level decreased along with the clinical stage increasing. miR-124 overexpression increased DSCAM-AS1 level while DSCAM-AS1 overexpression decreased miR-124 level. In addition, miR-124 overexpression decreased HCC cell proliferation, while DSCAM-AS1 increased HCC cell proliferation. Moreover, DSCAM-AS1 overexpression reduced the effects of miR-124 overexpression. DSCAM-AS1 interacts with miR-124 to promote HCC proliferation.