GAMING FOR AFRICA
The First Online Gambling Report Spanning Every African Nation
New analysis from Gaming Compliance International (GCI) presents the fi rst ever comprehensive report undertaken of online gambling across all 54 African nations, drawing on two years of audience and activity data across 2024 and 2025.
Across Africa’s online gaming marketplaces, revenue going to regulated operators grew from $4.4 billion in 2024 to $5.2 billion in 2025. The regulated share of the total online African gaming market rose from 22% to 23%, providing real benefi ts to commerce, communities and consumers across the continent. Africa is complicated by vastly different regulatory realities across the continent, ranging from entirely prohibited marketplaces to those with recently introduced regulatory frameworks. It is complicated further by the presence and persistence of the unregulated sector, which seeks to exploit every marketplace regardless of its regulatory conditions.
The percentage of the total population that interacted with online gambling grew from 13% (198 million people) in 2024 to 14% (215 million people) in 2025. Demand is not the problem within Africa. The challenge is ensuring that demand is captured within the regulated sector.
THE AFRICA CHALLENGE: FROM UNREGULATED TO REGULATED This report recognizes the size of the challenge facing Africa. In 2025, $17.8 billion in online gaming GGR was stolen by unregulated online gambling operators, costing African governments an estimated $3.55 billion in lost tax. The number of unregulated operators targeting Africa grew from 3,644 in 2024 to 4,129 in 2025. GCI frames these losses as the potential future
benefi ts of marketplace optimization. As market share shifts into the regulated sector, more consumers will be protected, more local jobs and investments will be produced, and more public funding will be available for communities to grow and develop.
THE PATH FORWARD: THE OPTIMIZATION OPPORTUNITY • Regulatory success is reliant on four key components:
• Monitoring the entire online gambling marketplace
• Policing against unlicensed operators targeting Africa without regulatory oversight
• Enforcing the integrity of regulation • Optimizing the regulated sector so that it remains attractive, accessible and competitive for African consumers
Small, practical improvements in public policies, taxation, payments, product availability, enforcement and regulatory collaboration can and will encourage results within Africa. The purpose of regulation is not only to regulate licensed operators, but to sensibly regulate the entire online gambling marketplace. However, the opportunity in Africa is not simply to regulate more. It is to optimize better, and to judge its success based on the outcomes of these objectives.
Kenya High Court Allows Gambling Regulations to Take Effect, Suspends Fee Hikes
Kenya’s High Court has allowed the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya (GRAK) to implement most of the contested Gambling Control (Licensing) Regulations, 2026, while maintaining a suspension on proposed increases to licensing fees and new capital requirements.
The court revised an earlier July 20 order that had halted the regulations in their entirety. GRAK had argued that the blanket suspension prevented it from carrying out key responsibilities under the 2025 Gambling Control Act, including processing licence applications, enforcing anti-money laundering measures, protecting consumers and tackling illegal offshore betting operations.
GRAK Director General Peter M. Karimi told the court that the subsidiary regulations were necessary to give effect to the 2025 Act, arguing that existing transitional provisions did not provide sufficient procedures for new licence applications or the enforcement of technical standards. The court accepted the need for the broader regulatory framework to proceed while the legal challenge continues.
LICENSING FEES REMAIN SUSPENDED
The court has, however, kept the financial provisions under the Second and Third Schedules on hold. These include proposed licensing fee increases ranging from 200%
to 49,900%, as well as new gambling capital requirements.
Justice Musyoka noted that the legal challenge was specifically focused on the financial burdens imposed by these provisions rather than the wider regulatory framework. The parties have been directed to file and exchange written submissions by September 21, 2026, with a final ruling on the disputed fees and capital requirements scheduled for October 2 through the court’s Case Tracking System.
Until then, Kenya’s new gambling regulations will operate in part, with the wider licensing and regulatory provisions taking effect while the contested financial requirements remain suspended
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Matt Holt, CEO of GCI, said: “For the fi rst time, we can see the whole of Africa’s online gambling market clearly. Nation by nation, across two full years, the picture is encouraging. The regulated sector is growing, and in several countries, it is starting to gain ground. That tells us these tools work. Our job is to give regulators a complete and honest view of their own market, so they can build on the progress this data now shows.” Ismail Vali, President of GCI, said: “Africa’s online gambling marketplaces should not be defi ned by their challenges. They should be defi ned by their opportunity. Millions of consumers already participate in online betting and gaming, creating substantial economic activity and the potential to deliver sustainable local commerce, public revenues, and safer consumer outcomes. The challenge is not creating demand. The challenge is ensuring that demand is captured within the regulated sector. Marketplace outcomes are the ultimate measure of regulatory success. The objective is not simply to regulate licensed operators. The objective is to optimize the entire online gambling marketplace so that consumers choose to enter, remain within, and benefi t from the regulated sector.”
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