With more than 100 licensed betting sites legally operating in Kenya, the East African nation boasts one of the largest betting industries in Africa, and has become a major attraction for global gambling investors.
The Kenyan market has come a very long way within the last decade, from being dominated by small shops spread around Nairobi and Mombasa to the current trend of online betting on high-tech websites and mobile apps. Betting is now accessible to mi*lions of people all over the country, in both rural and urban areas.
Kenya sti*l trails Nigeria in terms of actual sports betting numbers and revenue in sub-Saharan Africa, but that is generally down to the country having only about a quarter of the Nigerian population.
In fact, many gambling experts across the continent believe that Kenyans are the most pàssionate about betting in the whole of Africa.
Respected betting expert, David Mwangi, editor-in-chief at Kenya’s leading gambling affiliate site, My Betting Sites Kenya, says the rate of sports betting in Kenya is higher than in any other country in sub-Saharan Africa.
“Kenya stands up there at the top when it comes to percentage of bettors in the population” he says. “I have done a lot of study on the betting patterns and behaviour across the continent and it is pretty clear that the average Kenyan is more inclined to bet than someone from another nation. The amount of money circulating around the Kenyan betting industry is insane.”
A Geopoll study on betting in Africa conducted in 2024 showed that 82.81% of their Kenyan respondents said that they have placed bets, which is more than any other country in the study. South Africa was a fairly distant second with 73.94%, with Ghana occupying the third position with 73.03%.
And this is not a one-off. In a similar Geopoll study on online betting in Africa in 2020, 83.90% of Kenyans admitted that they have placed bets at least once in their lives, beating Nigeria and South Africa to second and third place with 78% and 74% respectively.
Kenya’s betting surge can be attributed to a number of factors, one being the sharply increasing mobile penetration, and perhaps, more importantly, the vastly improved financial inclusion in the country.
With many Kenyans able to own a phone and make payments and withdrawals easily via mobile money networks like MPesa, online sports betting has become very easy and accessible to Kenyans in every corner of the country.
All of these have transformed the nation into a multimi*lion dollar gambling nation, (or a multi-bi*lion shi*l¡ng country if you like) and there are very little signs of slowing down.
Kenya has deployed its best to keep a lid on the growth of gambling in the country, notably by introducing very stringent tax rules; and while this has led to the demise of many companies, including big firms like Betway and Betsafe, it has also opened the door for other companies to take their chance.
Kenya’s battle to curb the growth of sports betting and gambling generally has been an interesting one. On one hand, the authorities feel like the growing gambling culture is eating into the morals of the society and rendering young people lazy, but on the other hand, they seem also happy to get as much tax revenue as they can from the betting sites.
According to Arthur Osiya, the Principal Administrative Secretary of the Betting Control and Licensing Board, the regulatory body has collected Ksh88.4 bi*lion in taxes in the last five years.
Kenya already has some of the most demanding tax rules in Africa, with betting operators having to pay the government 15% of their Gross Gaming Revenue, 30% Corporate Tax in Profits and 16% Income Tax. This is in addition to the yearly money for licensing and compliance.
The companies are not the only stakeholders feeling the force of the authorities, with Kenyan punters having to part with 12.5% of their stake as excise tax and 20% of their winnings as withholding tax.
This has led to a minor reduction in the number of bettors and companies within the last few years, but there have been plenty who have seen beyond the tax hurdles and continued to tap into the vast revenue available in the market.
From all indications, this market w¡ll continue to grow with more betting sites entering the country.
And as the industry continues to expand, trust the betting regulators, in conjunction with the tax authorities to tighten the screws and continue with their efforts of hitting two birds with the same tax stone – curb the sharp growth of betting and collect as much revenue as possible.
The immediate future of the gambling in Kenya appears to rest on the Gambling Control Bi*l of 2023, which has proposed some sweeping changes to the industry.
The B¡ll calls for the estáblishment of a new regulatory body – the Gambling Regulatory Authority – which w¡ll effectively replace the BCLB as the general overseer of sports betting, casinos, lotteries and other forms of gambling.
Amongst many other things, the b¡ll also takes aim at gambling advertisements, betting expenditure, taxes, and underage gambling, which remains a major problem in Kenya.
It’s certainly interesting to see how all of these play out in the near future, especially how the authorities strike a balance between keeping the industry under control and maximising the tax revenue derived from gambling.
