Online gambling laws in Africa: a 54-country map

A continent with very different rules

Africa has some of the fastest-growing betting markets in the world, but no common rulebook. Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania have built licensing systems that cover online play, and South Africa licenses betting through its provincial boards; in much of Central and West Africa, betting runs through a state lottery or a single licensed operator, and online casinos are simply not mentioned in the law. In North Africa and the Horn of Africa, gambling is banned outright.

The map shows how that plays out. The largest group, by far, is countries that license sports betting but have no route for online casinos: you can bet on football with a local bookmaker, but no casino site holds a local licence. The next largest is countries with no clear rules at all, where players use offshore sites with no local protection.

What it means for players

A local licence is what gives a player somewhere to turn when a site refuses to pay. Where there is none, protection depends entirely on the foreign licence the site holds, usually from Curaçao or Anjouan. That is why our country guides label every brand’s licence, and why we flag countries where gambling is prohibited.

Payments tell their own story. In almost every country we cover, mobile money such as M-Pesa, MTN MoMo, Airtel Money and Orange Money is the main way to fund a betting account. Cards matter far less than in Europe.

How we measured it

We researched each country’s gambling law, regulator and licensing practice from regulators’ own sites, gazettes and legal summaries, and recorded two statuses: one for online casinos and one for sports betting. Each is one of: licensed, no licence route, unclear, prohibited or grey area. The map groups countries by the combination of the two. Western Sahara is shown but not covered; Somaliland is shown with Somalia’s status. Island states too small to show on the map are in the table. Laws change: check a country’s regulator before relying on its status, and see each country’s guide for the detail behind it.