Between November 2024 and September 2026, seven of the markets we cover rewrote their betting rules. Two banned the activity outright. One abolished its federal regulator. One raised the tax on player winnings to half. Most guides still describe the old rules. This page tracks what actually changed, with the date and the source for each.
18+ · This is an information page, not betting advice. Every figure carries its source and the date we checked it. Where we could not verify a claim, we say so instead of repeating it.
What changed: on 22 November 2024 the Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, that the National Lottery Act 2005 was unconstitutional in its entirety. Lottery, betting and gaming are residual matters belonging to the states. A perpetual injunction restrains the federal government from enforcing the Act anywhere in the federation.
What it means now: there is no such thing as a Nigerian federal betting licence. More than twenty states formed a federation of regulators and adopted a reciprocity certificate in May 2025; states outside it have no recognised framework. In October 2026 the Lagos authority gave telecom operators thirty days to cut off betting firms without a Lagos licence.
Still unresolved: whether the National Lottery Regulatory Commission survives at all or is confined to the Federal Capital Territory. Commentators disagree and we will not pick a side.
What changed: the Gambling Control Act 2025 repealed the Betting, Lotteries and Gaming Act and replaced the Betting Control and Licensing Board with the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya. Assented 7 August 2025, commenced 26 August 2025.
What it means now: licences issued under the old regime have been expiring and operators have had to reapply. The 2026 licensing regulations were gazetted on 30 June 2026, suspended by the High Court weeks later, then partially reinstated on 24 August 2026 pending final judgment.
Tax: from 1 July 2026, the 5% excise duty applies to amounts deposited for betting rather than to the wallet. A 20% withholding tax on winnings was reinstated by the Finance Act 2026 — though whether sports betting winnings fall within the statutory definition is genuinely unclear, and we are not going to assert that they do.
Two figures to discard: there is no 7.5% duty on stakes and no separate 5% tax on withdrawals. Both circulate widely and neither is supported.
What changed: the 2026 Budget Speech, presented on 5 December 2025, raised the tax on gambling winnings to 50%. The climb is recent: 30% until 2024, 40% through 2025.
What it means now: the tax applies to winnings excluding the stake, and the operator withholds it at source before paying you, filing a monthly return with the Gambia Revenue Authority. On a 500 stake at odds of 3.00, the 1,000 of profit becomes 500.
The context nobody mentions: The Gambia has no gambling regulator at all. Casinos are licensed by the Tourism Board, tax is administered by the Revenue Authority, and no authority licenses online betting. A 2015 ban on all gambling was lifted in May 2017.
Our caveat: we could not locate the amending legislation setting the 50% rate. It rests on the Budget Speech — official, but not a statute.
What applies: article 225 of the General Tax Code sets a 15% final withholding levy on gambling winnings, introduced by a law of 24 December 2022 and effective from 1 January 2023.
Who regulates: there is no independent authority. Law 027-2008/AN makes games of chance subject to prior authorisation from the Ministry of Finance. The state operator, the LONAB, launched its own online sportsbook on 26 December 2023 and reported 45,097 registered users within a day.
Beware of inventions: comparison sites refer to a Commission Nationale des Jeux de Hasard. We found no trace of it in any official Burkinabè source and believe it does not exist.
What changed: Medida Provisória 1.394, published 25 September 2026, prohibits the operation, offering, intermediation and advertising of fixed-odds betting in Brazil, explicitly including operators based abroad offering to people located in Brazil. Licences granted under the 2023 law were extinguished thirty days later.
The detail that matters for anyone publishing: article 16 covers all content that offers, promotes or facilitates access to betting and is directed at the Brazilian public, regardless of the format or the form of remuneration. That wording reaches affiliate content.
Still open: the measure must be approved by Congress and is under challenge at the Supreme Federal Court. Nothing had been decided when we checked.
What changed: the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 received assent on 22 August 2025 and commenced on 1 May 2026. It prohibits all online money games, defined explicitly as games played for stakes irrespective of whether based on skill, chance, or both. The decades-old skill-versus-chance distinction no longer protects anything.
Who is penalised: offering such a service carries up to 3 years and a fine; advertising it up to 2 years; facilitating payments up to 3 years. The Act reaches services operated from outside India. The player is not penalised under the penalty section — but that is precisely the trap, because an unlawful operator leaves you with no recourse when it refuses to pay.
What applies: law 7258 reserves sports betting to the state body. Article 5 punishes advertising or otherwise inducing people to play with 1 to 3 years in prison, and providing access to betting operated abroad with 4 to 6 years. Players face an administrative fine, not prison.
What changed: a presidential circular of 1 November 2025 launched a national action plan whose explicit priorities include advertising and promotion. In 2025 the lottery authority had 11,236 advertising and redirection sites blocked, and filed criminal complaints rather than merely requesting blocks. In August 2026 four people were remanded in custody in Istanbul for producing promotional content for an illegal betting site.
Four of these seven changes happened in the last fourteen months, and three of them reverse the previous position entirely. A guide written in 2024 will tell you Nigeria has a federal regulator, Kenya has the BCLB, and Brazil is a newly regulated market. All three statements are now wrong.
The practical test: if a page quotes a licence number, a tax rate or a regulator without a date next to it, you cannot tell whether it is current. That applies to this page too — which is why every section above carries the month the rule changed, and why we list what we could not verify instead of filling the gap.