Francophone Africa: What Regulators Publish — and Don't — About Unlicensed Online Gambling

What this page adds

Our statistics page on crash games in Morocco and Africa documents the Moroccan market and the continental aggregates — Gaming Compliance International estimates there that 77% of African online gambling revenue passed outside licensed sites in 2025. It does not go down to the level of each francophone country, and its figures come from private institutes. Our country-by-country page, Africa online betting by country, covers bettor behaviour in six countries, not regulatory leakage.

This page does the opposite: no institute aggregates, only what the five countries' own authorities publish, country by country — including when the answer is "nothing". We found no existing side-by-side comparison of these official positions; that is the gap this comparison fills.

The comparison table

Each row restates the estimate exactly as its authority published it, with the scope that authority gives it. The rows are not interchangeable: a share of stakes, a turnover amount and a tax-capture gap describe three different realities.

Full dataset: every row of this comparison (country, authority, estimate, scope, year, source and status), in CSV format — the exact table from which every figure on this page is drawn. Download the CSV
The file is free to reuse — credit Chicken Road Productions as the source.

Explorer: the official position, country by country

Select a country to display its official position as we recorded it: competent authority, published estimate or documented absence, scope, year and source document.

Morocco: the only country where the public operator publishes a share

The MDJS, the state monopoly operator, estimates that around 40% of Moroccan players' stakes flow to unregulated operators [3]. The trade press separately values offshore betting at around 3.5 billion MAD per year, presenting that amount as the only figure available for Morocco's unregulated market [4].

Morocco is the only one of the five countries where the authority publishes a share — around 40% — rather than an amount. It is also the market where the gap is structural: no online betting operator is licensed locally, so the entire online offer is, by construction, outside the regulated perimeter.

Côte d'Ivoire: the most complete costing, published by the Ministry of Finance

Presenting Law No. 2020-480 to the Senate, Finance Minister Adama Coulibaly put figures on the phenomenon: in sports betting, more than 500 websites offering online gambling are accessible from Côte d'Ivoire without authorisation; their annual turnover is estimated at 6 billion FCFA, an estimated tax loss of 180 million FCFA for the State [1]. Of the five countries, this is the only official costing that gives a site count, an amount and a tax loss together.

The framework has since been tightened: since 1 January 2024, Decree No. 2023-945 reserves online gambling operations to LONACI and its approved partners, and the law allows the ARJH to order internet providers to block unlicensed sites [2]. As an order of magnitude — this is our calculation, from the cited documents — the 6 billion FCFA estimated in 2020 represents about 1% of LONACI's 2024 turnover (579.30 billion FCFA) [9]: the phenomenon was already documented, and costed as marginal in relative terms, before the tightening.

DR Congo: a tax-capture gap, not an offshore share

On 29 September 2025, Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba stated that, according to studies cited by his ministry, the gambling sector had generated between $1.6 and $1.7 billion in turnover in the last budget year (2024), while barely $1 million had reached the Treasury; the reformed framework could, in his estimate, generate more than $100 million in annual tax revenue [5].

We publish this figure for what it is: a tax-capture gap across the whole sector, advanced by the ministry in a reform context — not a measurement of the offshore share. The reform followed: Ordinance-Law No. 25/293 of 15 December 2025 assigned registration and regulation to the Ministry of Finance alone, operators had to seek CSJA accreditation before 31 March 2026 [10], and the public register still listed no accredited operator in September 2026, according to the sector guide GameBridge.

Senegal: a published perimeter, no figure

LONASE publishes no estimate of unlicensed flows. It publishes a perimeter: in July 2026, a communiqué closed the list of authorised online betting platforms at 17 names, declared every platform absent from the list clandestine, and announced prosecutions against promoters and complicit payment intermediaries [6]. Any site off the list is illegal by definition — but LONASE says neither how many there are, nor how much they weigh.

The only numerical context comes from the Ministry of Finance: the 20% tax introduced by Law No. 17/2025 (November 2025) collected 40.9 billion FCFA in the first quarter of 2026, and the annual revenue forecast was revised from 300 billion to 120 billion FCFA. A forecast revision is not a leakage measurement: we cite it as context, not as an estimate.

Cameroon: a regime on paper, no measure and no public list

Cameroon has had a complete authorisation regime on paper since 2019: Law No. 2015/012 and Decree No. 2019/2300/PM subject online sports betting to five-year ministerial authorisations; a foreign operator must create a local subsidiary, post a bank guarantee of 200 million FCFA, and make its platform accessible only via a .cm domain; online casino falls into no authorised category [7].

But no estimate of unlicensed flows is published, and we located no public list of the operators actually authorised. The legal perimeter therefore exists with no public measure of what escapes it — nor even of what it contains.

Why two countries out of five publish no figure

The five positions fall into three postures. Two authorities measure: the MDJS publishes a share (around 40%), the Ivorian Ministry of Finance an amount and a tax loss. One authority argues: the Congolese ministry publishes a capture gap to justify its reform. Two authorities delimit without measuring: LONASE publishes the list of the authorised, Cameroon an authorisation regime — the "legal" is defined, the "offshore" is never counted.

The absence is not a regional exception. A comparative study covering 41 sub-Saharan African countries where gambling is regulated found that only 2 regulators published annual reports continuously [8]. In that context, the three figures in our table are documented exceptions — and the two empty cells are the region's normal state, which we publish as such rather than filling it with unverifiable private estimates.

Method and limits

We retained only figures published by an authority of the country concerned: regulator, national lottery, ministry. Each row of the table restates the scope of its source document; where a figure circulates with no identifiable official document, it is excluded — that is the case for several private estimates circulating for Senegal and Cameroon.

Three limits to know before reusing these figures. First, the scopes differ (a share of stakes, a turnover of unlicensed sites, a sector-wide tax gap): no regional total has therefore been computed. Second, the years differ (2020 for Côte d'Ivoire, 2024–2026 for the others): the rows describe the state of official publication, not a ranking at a single date. Third, two figures rest on press relays of official statements (MDJS via Le Desk; the Congolese minister via mediacongo.net and Mining & Business), for lack of an accessible direct publication; they are flagged as such in the references.

Frequently asked questions

Which country publishes the most complete estimate?

Côte d'Ivoire: its Ministry of Finance is the only one to publish a count of unlicensed sites (more than 500), their estimated turnover (6 billion FCFA per year) and the associated tax loss (180 million FCFA) together. Morocco publishes the only market share (around 40% of stakes, according to the MDJS).

Why is there no total for francophone Africa?

Because the three published figures do not measure the same thing: a share of stakes in Morocco, a turnover amount in Côte d'Ivoire, a tax-capture gap in DR Congo. Adding them up would fabricate a precision that exists in no source document.

Why do Senegal and Cameroon have no figure?

Because their authorities publish none. LONASE publishes the list of the 17 authorised platforms (July 2026) without estimating the flows off the list; Cameroon has had an authorisation regime since 2019, with no published estimate and no public list of authorised operators that we could locate. We publish these absences as findings, not as blanks to fill.

Where is the data, and can I reuse it?

The full dataset can be downloaded in CSV format from this page (link under the comparison table). It is free to reuse — credit Chicken Road Productions as the source.

References

1. Ministry of Finance and Budget (Côte d'Ivoire), "Régime juridique des jeux de hasard en Côte d'Ivoire" — presentation of the bill by Minister Adama Coulibaly, finances.gouv.ci, 2020
2. Law No. 2020-480 of 27 May 2020 on the legal regime of gambling in Côte d'Ivoire (art. 39: blocking of unlicensed sites), National Assembly
3. MDJS, figures reported by Le Desk and the Moroccan press
4. iGaming Business, "North Africa online betting licensing gap", 11 September 2026
5. Ministry of Finance (DR Congo), statement by Minister Doudou Fwamba, 29 September 2025, reported by mediacongo.net and Mining & Business
6. LONASE, communiqué — list of the 17 authorised online betting platforms in Senegal, July 2026; OSIRIS report
7. Law No. 2015/012 of 16 July 2015 and Decree No. 2019/2300/PM (Cameroon) — analysis of the online gambling framework, casinonewsdaily
8. Sichali, J.M. et al., "Regulation of gambling in Sub-Saharan Africa: findings from a comparative policy analysis", Public Health 214:140–145, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhe.2022.07.018
9. DGPE (Direction Générale du Portefeuille de l'État, Côte d'Ivoire), LONACI report — 2024 turnover: 579.30 billion FCFA
10. Actualité.cd, "Gambling operators invited to register", 11 February 2026