Africa’s iGaming Industry: a guide to the continent’s booming market

Africa is no longer viewed as a speculative frontier for the iGaming sector. Instead, the continent headed towards an overall gambling market valued at $17.63 billion in 2025, with some analysts putting the compound annual growth rate above 17% between 2022 and 2027 - faster than any other region in the world. Sports betting alone already accounts for more than 440 million African bettors, a segment that, on its own, exceeds $3 billion in revenue.

The landscape and the numbers

In the continent, three markets concentrate most of the activity and investment: South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Together, they currently generate around $625 million and are expected to cross $1 billion within five years, with customer acquisition costs 50-70% lower than in Western markets.

Nigeria represents the largest piece, generating around $3.63 billion in gross gaming revenue (GGR) in 2025, driven primarily by sports betting, which accounts for around 75% of revenue. South Africa remains the continent's most mature market, recording a GGR of €3.07 billion in the 2023/24 fiscal year and projected to reach €3.9 billion by 2030. Meanwhile, Kenya stands out for its exceptionally high participation rate - 83.9% of adults have gambled - and its mobile-first ecosystem, which provides a significant competitive advantage for operators entering the market.

And mobile is where the common thread across Africa’s diverse markets lies. A 2025 GeoPoll survey found 91% of African bettors place bets on their phone, and more than 75% of the continent’s web traffic runs through mobile devices. Africa never followed the Western path of desktop-first, jumping straight to mobile. As a result, any product designed around a different flow loses traction from day one.

Africa’s fragmented regulatory environment

Every country has its own authority, timelines, and risk tolerance. Even so, they can generally be grouped into three distinct categories based on their level of regulatory maturity and market development.

First, the regulated, more mature markets. These can be found in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Nigeria - all jurisdictions with more established regulatory frameworks. Each requires a local licensing process to operate in, with its own regulatory authority overseeing taxation and consumer protection.

The second tier consists of the so-called grey markets, where online gambling remains largely unregulated. This includes much of Sub-Saharan Africa, where operators typically rely on offshore licenses from Curaçao or Malta, without full legal clarity on their standing under local law.

Finally, the closed markets of Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco completely prohibit gambling for their citizens, keeping only licensed physical casinos for foreigners in hotels – a far stricter approach than is found across most of the continent.

More recently, the Association of Gaming Regulators in Africa (AGRA) has been working to shift the region’s paradigm by unifying the licensing and taxation policies among member countries. By reducing the technical barriers to cross-border trade, the AGRA aims to build a centralized system for game certification, similar to those adopted in other regions of the globe. The process is far from finished, but any operators planning multi-country expansion should closely follow AGRA’s progress, as it could meaningfully simplify operations across multiple markets.

How to structure entry in the region

Successful market entry typically begins with one or two priority jurisdictions rather than a continent-wide expansion. The regulatory frameworks of South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda provide greater legal certainty, easing the process for new entrants.

Licensing should be approached as a strategic project rather than an administrative formality. Using South Africa as an example, the system operates on two levels: the National Gambling Board oversees the national framework, while the Provincial Gambling Boards hold exclusive authority to investigate applications and issue casino and betting licenses within their jurisdictions. Operators accustomed to centralized licensing models often underestimate the importance of the provincial layer.

Strong compliance capabilities have also become a prerequisite from day one. Beyond regulatory oversight, banks and payment providers now actively enforce KYC and AML requirements.

Technology strategy also plays a central role in market entry. Building a complete in-house platform - including a player account management (PAM) system, betting engine, payment integrations, and compliance tools - requires significant investment and can delay market entry. As a result, many operators rely on specialized B2B providers offering integrated PAM platforms for both casino and sports betting, enabling faster launches while often including licensing support as part of the solution.

But as with any iGaming market, success depends on careful planning rather than speed alone, which is why a well-defined plan is a must-have before diving in.

Where operators face the biggest challenges

One of the most common mistakes operators make when entering Africa is applying the same strategy that worked in European markets.

The biggest challenges usually lie in the regulatory and compliance requirements. Taxation on gambling is increasing across several jurisdictions - including South Africa, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Senegal - as governments seek to boost public revenue while responding to rising concerns about gambling-related harm.

At the same time, the regulatory fragmentation described above adds an extra layer of complexity for operators and investors looking to expand across the region, as licenses are issued country by country, and in some cases, operators must also navigate multiple layers of authority. As enforcement continues to tighten, non-compliance has become a significantly greater commercial and operational risk than in previous years, when institutions took a more lenient approach. This means that successful market entry depends not only on obtaining the appropriate licenses but also on maintaining robust compliance capabilities and adapting to an evolving regulatory environment.

What emerges is a continent where opportunity and complexity grow at the same pace. Operators who treat compliance as a competitive advantage rather than a cost to minimize tend to be the ones still standing five years from now, especially in Africa’s iGaming market.