Uganda’s NLGRB chief wins responsible gaming award at iGaming Afrika Summit

Denis Mudene Ngabirano, CEO of Uganda’s National Lotteries and Gaming Regulatory Board, has received the “Rising Star in Responsible Gaming” award, highlighting Uganda’s growing focus on player protection, compliance and technology-led gambling oversight.

Denis Mudene Ngabirano, chief executive officer of Uganda’s National Lotteries and Gaming Regulatory Board, has won the “Rising Star in Responsible Gaming” award at the iGaming Afrika Summit Awards 2026. The recognition was presented in Nairobi during the inaugural iGaming Afrika Summit, a regional industry event bringing together regulators, operators, suppliers and investors from across Africa.

The award places Ngabirano among emerging African regulatory leaders recognised for work in safer gambling and player protection. According to Ugandan media reports, the NLGRB described the award as recognition of its efforts to create a safer, fairer and better-regulated gaming environment in Uganda.

The recognition comes at a time when Uganda’s gambling sector is expanding rapidly, driven by sports betting, mobile money integration and wider access to digital gaming products. This growth has also created new concerns around underage betting, problem gambling, unlicensed operators and offshore platforms that are harder to monitor through traditional enforcement systems.

Under Ngabirano’s leadership, the NLGRB has increasingly presented itself as a technology-led regulator. The Board has promoted the use of digital monitoring, e-licensing and the National Central Electronic Monitoring System to improve oversight of licensed operators, strengthen tax compliance and support responsible gaming standards. Uganda’s reported annual gaming revenue increased from about UGX 50.6 billion in FY 2019/20 to around UGX 323 billion in FY 2024/25, a rise that the regulator links partly to tighter licensing and stronger digital supervision.

Responsible gaming has also become a central part of the regulator’s public agenda. The NLGRB says its responsible gaming programme includes treatment and counselling, public awareness, education, training and research on gambling-related harm. The Board has also carried out sensitisation campaigns with communities, institutions and media partners to raise awareness about underage gambling, excessive betting and safer gambling behaviour.

At the summit, Ngabirano also called for stronger regional cooperation among regulators, including the creation of a unified East African Gaming Regulators Forum to harmonise standards and address illegal cross-border gambling. This reflects a wider challenge for African regulators: betting markets are increasingly digital and regional, while enforcement remains largely national.

For Uganda, the award is more than an individual achievement. It signals growing continental attention to the country’s regulatory reforms and to the NLGRB’s efforts to balance sector growth with player protection. The next challenge will be sustaining this progress as online gambling, mobile betting and cross-border operators continue to reshape the market.