The Gambling Control Act, 2025 explained for the person placing a bet

The Gambling Control Act, 2025 is Act No. 14 of 2025. It was assented to on 7 August 2025, published in Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 141 on 12 August 2025 and commenced on 26 August 2025. From that day it replaced the Betting, Lotteries and Gaming Act (Cap. 131), which section 120 repeals, and it is the law behind every licensed betting site a Kenyan adult uses.

This page is the map of the Act for the person placing a bet: the regulator, the licences, the protections, the offences and the dates, followed by the five sets of 2026 Regulations. Each part names the section so you can find it in the Gazette text. The narrower question of whether a particular site is lawful is answered in is online betting legal in Kenya.

The Authority: who regulates betting now

Section 6(1) of the Act establishes the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya. Section 6(3) makes it the successor of the Betting Control and Licensing Board, and section 6(4) places its headquarters in Nairobi. Section 121(1) moved the former Board's rights, duties, assets and liabilities to the Authority on commencement.

The Authority's functions in section 10 include regulating and controlling gambling activities in paragraph (b), issuing the licences the Act prescribes in paragraph (c), and receiving and determining complaints from companies and the public on matters pertaining to games of chance in paragraph (m). Section 39(1) requires it to keep a register of licences showing each licensee's name, registration number, activity, counties and expiry date, and section 39(2) opens that register to the public on payment of a prescribed fee. The regulator's website shows a toll-free line, 0800-723-770.

Licences: what an operator needs

Section 28(1) is the Act's gate: a person shall not offer any gambling activity or service unless it is licensed under the Act. Section 28(2) lists the licensable activities, from bookmaking and casinos to online gambling and the provision of gambling software or platforms. Section 67(1) then provides three online licences: an online bookmakers licence, an online lottery licence and an online casino licence.

Section 31(3) sets a default licence period of thirty-six months unless regulations prescribe another, and the Fourth Schedule to the Gambling Control (Licensing) Regulations, 2026 prescribes one year for an online gambling licence. Section 36(3) requires an online licensee to display its licence on its platform, section 68(8) requires a customer care centre within Kenya, and section 79(1) lets a foreign-based operator hold an online licence only if it is registered in Kenya with a Kenyan physical address. The fees and capital rules are set out in the three online gambling licences in Kenya.

Player protections, section by section

Part of the Act reads like a list of promises an operator makes to you. Section 72(1) requires registration and an account before you play, and section 72(3) requires proof of age of majority before registration. Section 71(1) sets the minimum online bet at twenty shillings, and section 73(3) lets a licensee accept a wager only when your account holds enough approved funds to cover it.

Section 70(1) requires a monetary online prize to be credited to your account within two days, and section 70(6) requires proof of age of majority before the prize is remitted. Section 76(2) requires the money held for players to equal player balances at all times, with any shortfall made good from the licensee's own money within thirty days of the month's end. Section 77(1) requires the balance of an account with no transaction for three months to be remitted to the player.

The 2026 Conduct Regulations add the tools. Regulation 84(1) requires accessible, real-time tools to control gambling behaviour, and regulation 84(2) lists them: deposit limits on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, loss, session and expenditure limits, reality-check pop-ups showing duration of play, and an easy option for self-exclusion of at least twenty-four hours linked to the national register. No figure for a maximum stake, deposit or loss appears in the Act or the Regulations as gazetted, so the choice of limit is yours; how to set one is covered in deposit limits and time limits in Kenyan betting law.

Self-exclusion has both a statutory and a regulatory layer. Section 115(1) lets a person who recognises that their gambling is harmful enter a self-exclusion agreement with a licensee covering all gambling, including online, and section 115(5) makes it an offence, with a fine of up to one million shillings, imprisonment of up to one year, or both, to fail to implement a written request within seven days. Regulation 70 of the Conduct Regulations routes the request through the Authority on Form 1, whose periods are six months, one year, two years or indefinite, regulation 67(3) requires online platforms to offer the mechanism in real time, and the procedure is in self-exclusion from betting in Kenya.

Offences that protect the bettor

The Act enforces its promises with offences aimed at operators. Section 98 punishes operating any gambling without a valid licence with up to three million shillings, up to three years, or both, rising to five million shillings and five years for a repeat offence. Section 79(3) punishes a foreign-based operator providing online gambling in Kenya without a licence, with a fine of up to fifty million shillings for a corporate body.

Section 109 is the one aimed at keeping children out: betting with a child, employing a child in betting, receiving a bet through a child or sending betting material to a child each carry up to one million shillings, up to one year, or both. Section 87(1) requires the Authority's approval for any gambling advertising, and section 87(2)(e) keeps gambling adverts off television and radio between 6am and 10pm except during a live sporting event.

Complaints and the Tribunal

Regulation 9 of the Conduct Regulations puts the first step with the operator: its customer care centre must report any matter raised by the public to the Authority within two days and refer anything unresolved after seventy-two hours, or on your written request, to the Authority. The Authority determines complaints under section 10(m). Section 80 then allows a party to an online gambling dispute to appeal to the Gambling Appeals Tribunal within fourteen days of the dispute.

Section 88(1) establishes the Tribunal to hear appeals against decisions of the Authority and complaints about the outcome of a gambling transaction or the functioning of gambling machines. Regulation 18 of the Gambling Control (Gambling Appeals Tribunal) Regulations, 2026 gives the Tribunal no jurisdiction until the Authority's own mechanisms have run, and regulation 6 requires a memorandum of appeal within thirty days of the Authority's decision. Section 90 allows an appeal from the Tribunal to the High Court within fourteen days.

Key dates and the five 2026 Regulations

Section 119 gives the regulation-making power to the Cabinet Secretary in consultation with the Board. On 29 June 2026 the Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs made five sets of Regulations, four of them under it and the Appeals Tribunal Regulations under section 88(12), and they were published in the Kenya Gazette on 30 June 2026. This page describes them as gazetted.

Parliament's library also catalogues a sixth instrument, the Gambling Control (The Conduct of a National Lottery) Regulations, 2026, as Legal Notice No. 116; its text was not on the regulator's website at the access date and it does not concern betting accounts. The transition deserves one more date: regulation 30(1) of the Licensing Regulations continued licences issued under the repealed Act for sixty days from 30 June 2026, after which holders needed a licence under the new Regulations.

What the Act does not do

It does not print eighteen as the age for betting; the word appears once, in section 84(3), in a condition about amusement machines. The Act speaks of proof of age of majority in sections 72(3) and 70(6); the figure appears in regulation 92(1)(c) of the Conduct Regulations, which refers to persons under the age of eighteen years. It sets no maximum stake, deposit or loss: section 71(1) sets only the twenty-shilling minimum, and regulation 84 obliges operators to offer limit tools without prescribing figures.

It does not set the taxes on your stake or your withdrawal. Section 121(6)(a) keeps the betting, gaming, lottery and prize competition tax sections of the repealed Act in force until new provisions are enacted, and the excise and withholding rules live in other statutes. Those, and everything from account to payout, are gathered in the complete legal guide to online betting in Kenya and in the full list of guides.