This archive report was first published on 10 July 2019.
On July 10, 2019, the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) Acting Director, Liti Wambua, wrote to mobile money service providers Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom Kenya, instructing them to withdraw the pay bill numbers and SMS codes of 27 betting companies.
The affected firms, including SportPesa, Betin, Betway, and 24 others, had failed to prove tax compliance, according to a report from a multi-agency team that probed the licenses of all betting and gaming companies in the country.
The report revealed that the companies made a cumulative amount of Ksh.204 billion last year but paid only Ksh.4 billion in taxes.
As a result, the government has suspended the licenses of the 27 firms, and they are required to meet outstanding renewal requirements and undergo due diligence to determine their fitness to hold a license.
The move is part of a broader effort to regulate the betting industry in Kenya, which has been accused of fraud and other irregularities.
The affected firms include SportPesa, Betin, Betway, Betpawa, Elitebet, PremierBet, Lucky2u, 1xBet, MozzartBet, Dafabet, World Sports Betting, Atari Gaming, Palms Bet, and Betboss, among others.
