Kenyan President approves bill to increase minimum bet

On August 7, Kenyan President William Ruto approved the Gambling Control Bill 2023, which introduces new controls on gambling.

The key change is to increase the minimum bet to Ksh20. If an operator accepts a bet of less than this, they will face a fine of at least Ksh5 million or, in the worst case, a prison sentence of up to 5 years.

In addition, players must now have an account on an online casino site. Operators, in turn, must develop age verification of the player to prevent underage registration. Mechanisms should not be formal, but genuinely ensure that children are not allowed to access such platforms.

A real-time monitoring system for casinos and online gambling will also be created. The monitoring data will be available to the Kenya Communications Authority (CA).