A growing number of disgruntled gamblers are sounding the alarm over Mozzart Bet’s virtual games, with players accusing the betting company of manipulating outcomes in a scheme that they say is designed to ensure customers lose their money regardless of the result they select.
Multiple punters have come forward with similar complaints about the company’s virtual football offerings, claiming that the results appear predetermined and that the odds are structured in a manner that consistently works against players, leaving them questioning the integrity of the platform and calling for greater scrutiny of its operations.
Oe game that has attracted particular attention is the “Instant Virtual Football Golden Race,” where players say they have observed a recurring pattern in the outcomes, claiming that whenever they place a bet on either team to win, the match frequently ends in a draw, while selecting a draw is followed by either a win or a loss for one of the teams.
One punter who regularly places single bets said he noticed the pattern after repeatedly losing on the game, explaining that his selections were repeatedly contradicted by the eventual results, with bets on either team to win ending in draws and bets on draws producing different outcomes.
The player has described the experience as unfair and is calling for the betting company to explain how the virtual games generate their results and whether the systems used to determine the outcomes are independently verified.
The complaints have raised broader questions among players over the transparency of virtual betting games, particularly where customers believe recurring outcome patterns are making it difficult to determine whether the games are operating fairly. "Hello Nyakundi. I want to share how gambling company Mozzart Bet is a scam. I played a game called Instant Virtual Football Golden Race. I normally bet single bets, but whenever I go for either team to win, the game ends in a draw. And if I go for the draw, it either wins or loses. This is a scam. I want you to share this story so that people are saved. Please find photos for evidence."
This complaint is far from an isolated incident, as hundreds of Kenyan punters have flooded consumer forums, social media platforms, and parliamentary petitions with identical stories of winning bets on Mozzart only to have their withdrawals blocked, delayed, or permanently frozen.
The company has been accused of inventing technical glitches, processing errors, or vague "bonus abuse" accusations until the victim finally gives up in exhaustion, leaving them frustrated and out of pocket.
A Pattern of Predatory Practices
The pattern of manipulation at Mozzart Bet extends far beyond virtual football games, as the company has been caught staging fake jackpot winners using actors and misleading the public with flashy advertisements and staged millionaire ceremonies that portray paid performers as genuine winners.
Investigators and media reports have revealed that they hire actors to pose as jackpot victors, with the same faces appearing in multiple campaigns over different years, proving they are not customers but professional performers.
These staged ceremonies serve one purpose: they convince vulnerable young Kenyans that betting offers a way out of poverty, so when a young person sees a fake winner celebrate millions of shillings, they empty their wages into the platform hoping to replicate that fantasy, but the house always wins and the young person loses everything.
The company's predatory marketing strategy targets Kenya's most vulnerable populations, with agents deployed to low-income areas where betting propensity is highest, while "free bets" and "bonus credits" trap newcomers into endless cycles of deposits and losses.
Money Laundering Machine
The rot at Mozzart Bet runs far deeper than manipulated games and deceptive advertising, as court rulings have exposed the company as a money‑laundering machine that has been operating with impunity for years.
In a landmark judgment delivered in May 2025, the Court of Appeal ruled that Ksh 256 million seized from the firm were proceeds of crime, ending the betting company’s fight to reclaim the funds.
The appellate bench, composed of Justices Francis Toiyott, Fred Ochieng, and Aggrey Muchelule, upheld findings by the Asset Recovery Agency that the money was laundered through sham contracts and shell companies.
The betting operator argued that the funds were for a legitimate software contract with Kimaco Connection Ltd, but investigators found Kimaco was a ghost company with no employees, no income, nil tax returns filed with KRA, and no capacity to develop betting software.
The judges likened Kimaco to a duck, noting that if it looks, swims, and quacks like one, it probably is a duck.
Investigators traced nearly Ksh 640 million moving through the network, with the cash flowing from the betting firm to shell companies such as Kimaco Connections Limited, which on paper existed to supply software but in reality had no office, employees, computers or capacity to produce any software product.
The court traced those payments directly, showing that from Mozzart Bet the cash moved to Kimaco, then jumped to Pescom Kenya as another intermediary, and finally landed in the personal current accounts of its own directors.
The directors named in the judgment include Musa Cherutich Sirma, a Kenyan and former Member of Parliament; Emmanuel Charumbira, from Zimbabwe; and Branimir Melentijevic, a Serbian national, all of whom signed off on the fake software deals and watched their personal balances swell while Kenyan gamblers lost their wages on the very platform these men controlled. Melentijevic, a shareholder of Mozzartbet Africa, which is the majority shareholder of the Kenyan-registered betting firm, was found to have directly received laundered proceeds through the complex corporate structures.
Captured Regulator
The Gambling Regulatory Authority, which holds the legal mandate to revoke licences, fine operators, and block advertising, has done nothing to stop Mozzart despite having more than enough legal grounds to shut it down following the money-laundering conviction.
Explosive reports emerged in early 2026 that the company had earmarked close to Ksh 100 million to influence the newly formed GRA board ahead of the June 30 licence renewal deadline.
Sources close to the regulator told journalists that the company's director, Musa Cherutich Sirma, has reportedly been telling associates in private that the GRA is under control and that the company's operating licence will be renewed regardless of what the courts have found.
The GRA board has not publicly denied these reports nor instituted any disciplinary action against Mozzart Bet, and the regulator's conspicuous silence speaks louder than any confession, confirming what many already suspected.
Kenya's gambling watchdog does not watch but collects, negotiates, and sells favours to the highest bidder. The company's licence was previously suspended in 2019 alongside 26 other betting firms, yet it continues to operate as if nothing happened.
Human Toll
The human toll of Mozzart's operations is devastating and cannot be quantified in shillings, as Kenyan youth now lead Africa in problem gambling rates, with suicides linked to betting debts rising every year since it expanded aggressively.
Young men and women sell their phones, their motorbikes, and even their land titles chasing losses on mobile betting apps that never pay back what they take.
The company's platform makes this destruction dangerously easy through one-click deposits from M-Pesa, instant betting on live matches, and push notifications that urge "re-bet" after every loss, with no cooling-off period, no mandatory loss limits, and no meaningful self-exclusion tool.
Safaricom's AI had flagged dozens of high-traffic betting APIs, including Mozzart Bet, for suspicious activity, and offshore cash-outs linked to unverified wallet owners triggered intervention by the Financial Reporting Centre and Central Bank's AML unit.
Gambling-related depression rates are triple the national average, suicidal ideation increases with every losing streak, family violence spikes after major football tournaments, and schools report falling attendance on days when high-stakes matches occur, so the cost to Kenya's future is incalculable because a generation raised on betting apps will not build businesses, will not innovate, and will not save, but will gamble instead.
A Licence to Steal
Courts have done their job, the Asset Recovery Agency has done its job, and the journalists have done their job, yet the only institution that refuses to act is the Gambling Regulatory Authority, and that refusal stems from greed because the regulator has sold its integrity for a few million shillings and traded the welfare of Kenyan youth for personal enrichment.
The law is clear and the evidence is overwhelming, so Mozzart Bet should have lost its licence the day the High Court delivered its money laundering verdict, it should have been barred from advertising, and its directors should have faced criminal prosecution, but none of that happened because the people paid to enforce the law are the same people paid to break it.
Immediate action is now required from the Gambling Regulatory Authority to revoke Mozzart Bet's licence without further delay, while the Director of Public Prosecutions must charge the named directors with money laundering offences and Parliament must ban all betting advertisements on public media so that no more actors pretend to be winners and no more false hope broadcasts into every living room.
Kenyan citizens deserve far better than what they have received, and the youth who lose their wages and the families torn apart by gambling addiction deserve justice, for Mozzart Bet is a predator that thrives only because the fence protecting the public has been brought down by a regulator that has sold its integrity for bribes.
A country where a convicted money launderer continues to harvest billions from its most vulnerable population while bribing regulators, staging fake jackpots, refusing to pay genuine winners, targeting children with addictive advertising, evading taxes, and exporting profits overseas is a country that has accepted an unacceptable alternative, and that alternative must be rejected.
