The 2026 World Cup is generating millions of bets across Africa. The winners shouldn't just be bookmakers and punters but governments with the tools to capture the revenue and protect consumers, writes Abel Sy.
Every World Cup produces unforgettable moments on the pitch. It also produces something less visible but no less significant: billions of dollars in betting activity. And in 2026, with a record ten African nations qualifying for the first-ever 48-team World Cup, more of that money than ever will flow through the continent's bookmakers.
Betting is now woven into the matchday experience for millions of Africans. An estimated 440 million people placed a sports bet in 2025, in a gaming market worth roughly US$17.6 billion a year and growing at about 17% annually, faster than any other region on earth. Sports betting alone is approaching US$3 billion in annual revenue, and football accounts for the overwhelming majority of wagers. In Nigeria, the continent's largest market, sports betting makes up around 75% of all wagers, with an estimated 60 million people betting and daily stakes exceeding ₦10 billion. Powered by smartphones, mobile money and an unrivalled passion for the game, this is no longer a fringe activity. It is mainstream digital commerce.
That growth is far more than a commercial opportunity for bookmakers. It is a major fiscal opportunity for governments and one that most are still failing to capture. The problem is that regulation has not kept pace with the industry's digital transformation. In many markets, operators self-report their activity, payment systems remain disconnected from tax authorities and regulators cannot monitor transactions in real time. The result is predictable: governments collect less revenue than they are owed, illegal operators flourish and consumer protections are almost impossible to enforce.
The scale of that leakage is now becoming measurable and it is alarming. In South Africa, one of the continent's most developed markets, illegal offshore operators are estimated to drain more than R50 billion in gambling revenue out of the country every year. Unlicensed sites already account for roughly 62% of all online gambling activity, with more than 2,000 illegal platforms targeting South Africans and an estimated 16 million people, over a quarter of the population, having used them. The pattern repeats elsewhere: in Botswana, researchers found the illegal betting market had grown to roughly twice the size of the regulated one. Every shilling, naira or rand wagered on these platforms is a shilling, naira or rand that pays no local tax and offers no consumer protection. This is not an argument against betting. The market already exists and demand continues to grow. It is an argument for regulating it more intelligently.
Across Africa, governments face mounting pressure to strengthen domestic revenue mobilisation without piling new burdens on households or productive businesses. Betting offers a rare chance to expand tax revenues from an industry that is already thriving but only if regulators have the visibility to ensure compliance. And the central lesson from around the continent is unambiguous: simply raising tax rates does not work. Push rates too high and consumers migrate to unlicensed operators. South Africa's own Treasury has proposed a 20% national tax on online gambling that would lift effective rates toward 38–39%; industry and analysts warn it risks driving even more activity into the black market it is meant to curb. Better regulation, not just higher taxation, is what delivers sustainable public revenue.
Kenya shows what the smarter path looks like. The Kenya Revenue Authority reported that excise duty from betting reached KSh13.2 billion in the 2024/25 financial year, up sharply from KSh10.6 billion the year before, with a further KSh5.7 billion in betting tax. Crucially, that haul came as Kenya cut its excise rate from 15% to 5% while integrating operators' systems directly into the tax authority for real-time monitoring. Lower rates, better enforcement, higher collections. The visibility, not the rate, did the work.
South Africa illustrates the sheer scale of the prize. Gambling turnover reached approximately ZAR1.5 trillion in FY2024/25, up more than 31% in a single year, while taxes and levies generated ZAR5.8 billion for public finances. With most online betting still slipping offshore, the gap between what is collected and what could be collected is enormous. The debate over future reforms increasingly recognises that enforcement capability matters at least as much as the headline tax rate. This is where technology has become indispensable.
Modern regulation can no longer rely on periodic audits and paper declarations. Effective supervision requires real-time visibility across the entire betting ecosystem from player registration and payment verification to wager monitoring, automated tax calculation and fraud detection. The same infrastructure that closes the tax gap also enables stronger safeguards: customer identification, anti-money-laundering controls, and responsible-gambling tools such as self-exclusion and deposit limits. Better regulation does not merely increase government revenue. It builds trust in the market.
Our own experience has reinforced that lesson. In Senegal, PolyTechs has worked with regulators to digitise supervision across the betting ecosystem. More than 14 licensed operators have been integrated into a single platform, processing over two million transactions every day. Over three years, declared gaming revenues rose by 350% not because betting suddenly expanded overnight, but because the government finally gained real-time visibility over an industry that had previously operated with limited oversight. The bets were always being placed. The state simply started seeing them.
That experience carries a wider lesson. Governments should stop viewing betting solely as a social ill or a source of “sin taxes,” and start treating it as part of Africa's rapidly expanding digital economy deserving the same modern regulatory infrastructure now applied to payments, electronic invoicing and financial services.
The social case is just as compelling. GeoPoll research shows betting participation is especially high among young Africans, with around 35% of those surveyed betting at least weekly. In South Africa, the National Responsible Gambling Programme recorded a 55% jump in people seeking help between 2023 and 2025 and a national study found nearly a third of participants showing signs of addiction. As participation grows, governments have an obligation not only to collect revenue but to guarantee age verification, responsible advertising, player protection and effective support for those at risk of harm. Visibility over every transaction is precisely what makes those protections enforceable. The fiscal case and the social case do not compete, they reinforce one another.
The World Cup will end in July. Africa's betting economy will keep growing long after the final whistle. The countries that benefit most will not be those with the highest betting taxes. They will be those with the smartest regulatory systems - systems that let governments see every transaction, collect every legitimate tax, protect every consumer and create a level playing field for responsible operators.
Football has always united Africa. The digital betting economy it has created now offers governments another opportunity: to strengthen public finances while building a more transparent, accountable and sustainable industry. That is a prize worth competing for.
Abel Sy is the Founder of PolyTechs Global
