Nigeria Emerges as Africa’s Regulatory Bright Spot as New Report Reveals $17.8bn Opportunity Lost to Unlicensed Gambling

Nigeria’s online gaming industry may be closer than any other major African market to solving one of the continent’s biggest regulatory challenges; but the challenge itself remains continental, not national.

A new report by Gaming Compliance International (GCI) positions Nigeria as Africa’s strongest-performing large gaming market, demonstrating that effective regulation can gradually reclaim market share from unlicensed operators while strengthening consumer protection, tax revenues and investor confidence. Yet the report also reveals that the country’s biggest opportunity still lies ahead. Across the other 53 nations GCI tracked, most markets look nothing like Nigeria’s.

According to GCI’s Online Gaming 2024-2025: Africa report, Nigeria recorded the continent’s lowest share of unregulated online gambling among major African jurisdictions, with illegal operators accounting for 56 percent of online gambling activity in 2025. While that remains a significant proportion of the market, it is considerably better than the continental average of 77 percent and reflects the progress made through a clearer licensing framework and a more structured regulatory environment. But it also means well over half of Nigeria’s own market, and more than three-quarters of Africa’s, still sits outside any licensing or tax authority.

For policymakers, regulators and licensed operators, the findings send an important message: Africa’s online gaming challenge is no longer about creating demand. It is about ensuring that more of the demand already in the market is captured within regulated channels.

A Growing Market That Governments Are Yet to Fully Capture

The report estimates that Africa’s online gambling market generated $23 billion in Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) in 2025, up from $20 billion in 2024.Licensed operators increased their contribution from $4.4 billion to $5.2 billion, improving the regulated market share from 22 percent to 23 percent. At the same time, however, revenue flowing to unlicensed operators increased from $15.6 billion to $17.8 billion, meaning more than three-quarters of the continent’s online gambling economy continues to sit outside local licensing and taxation frameworks. The imbalance is far starker in some regions than others: North Africa’s five nations captured a combined regulated share of just 0.3% in 2025, and East Africa’s regulated share sits at only 15%. Against that backdrop, Nigeria’s 44% regulated share looks less like the norm and more like an outlier of relative success. For Nigeria, where governments continue to seek new non-oil revenue sources, those figures point to a broader economic opportunity.

Every percentage point shifted from the illegal market to the regulated sector represents additional tax revenue, stronger consumer safeguards, increased investment, and greater confidence for licensed operators already complying with Nigerian regulations. GCI argues the same holds true for finance ministries anywhere on the continent still watching three-quarters or more of their online gambling economy escape the tax net entirely.

Nigeria Is Showing That Regulation Can Work

Unlike many African jurisdictions where online gambling remains almost entirely outside regulatory oversight, Nigeria has begun demonstrating that structured regulation can influence consumer behaviour. GCI’s country-level data shows online gambling in Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Somalia and Egypt, by contrast, is 100% unregulated.

The report identifies Nigeria alongside Ghana as one of the continent’s leading examples of regulatory progress.

Nigeria also ranks among Africa’s highest-performing jurisdictions in GCI’s regulatory scorecard, scoring 32 out of 100, second only to Ghana’s 38, reflecting improvements in legal licensing, product availability and overall marketplace development. Both scores sit far ahead of a continental average of just 10 out of 100 in 2025, up marginally from 9 in 2024.

Matt Holt, Chief Executive Officer of Gaming Compliance International, believes the findings validate the direction taken by countries investing in stronger regulatory frameworks.

“For the first time, we can see the whole of Africa’s online gambling market clearly. Nation by nation, across two full years, the picture is encouraging.

“The regulated sector is growing, and in several countries, it is starting to gain ground. That tells us these tools work. Our job is to give regulators a complete and honest view of their own market, so they can build on the progress this data now shows.” That progress is reflected across the continent.

Regulated gaming revenues grew by almost $800 million between 2024 and 2025, while consumer exposure to licensed operators increased from 10 percent to 11 percent.

Although modest, the report argues these gains demonstrate that well-designed regulation can successfully compete for market share. Unregulated operators, however, still account for 89% of what African gambling consumers actually see across search results, social media, sports streams, affiliate sites and apps.

One of the report’s most striking conclusions is that regulators have historically focused too narrowly on supervising licensed operators while allowing illegal operators to dominate the wider digital ecosystem.
Today, gambling consumers no longer discover betting brands solely through operator websites.

They are acquired through search engines, social media platforms, influencers, affiliate marketing, illegal sports streaming services, payment platforms, mobile applications and messaging communities.

According to GCI, regulating operators without regulating this wider ecosystem leaves governments fighting only part of the battle.

The report introduces what it describes as a new regulatory framework (MPEO) built around four priorities: Monitor the entire online gambling market place; Police unlicensed operators targeting local consumers; Enforce the integrity of regulation and Optimise the regulated sector so that it remains commercially competitive.

Rather than measuring success by the number of licences issued or enforcement actions taken, GCI argues that regulators should ask a more important question: Are consumers choosing regulated operators?

Competition Is Now a Regulatory Issue: From Lagos to Nairobi to Casablanca

Perhaps the report’s strongest message, for Nigeria’s gaming industry and for regulators anywhere on the continent, is that competitiveness has become a regulatory concern.

When customer taxes become excessive, payment systems are cumbersome, licensing costs become prohibitive or products become overly restricted, consumers rarely stop gambling. Instead, they migrate to offshore platforms that operate outside local law. That dynamic plays out just as forcefully in Nairobi, Accra and Casablanca as it does in Lagos; the difference, GCI’s data suggests, is only a matter of degree from Nigeria’s 56% unregulated share to North Africa’s 99.7%.

That migration weakens legitimate operators, reduces tax receipts and leaves consumers without the protections built into licensed markets.

An Opportunity Worth Billions

The report estimates that 215 million Africans participated in online gambling during 2025, up from 198 million in 2024.

Yet 89 percent of online gambling exposure continues to promote unregulated operators, while the number of illegal platforms targeting African consumers increased from 3,644 to 4,129 within a year.

For Ismail Vali, President of Gaming Compliance International, those figures represent less a crisis than an opportunity.
“Africa’s online gambling marketplaces should not be defined by their challenges. They should be defined by their opportunity.

“Millions of consumers already participate in online betting and gaming, creating substantial economic activity and the potential to deliver sustainable local commerce, public revenues and safer consumer outcomes. The challenge is not creating demand. The challenge is ensuring that demand is captured within the regulated sector.”

He argues that regulatory success should no longer be measured simply by compliance metrics. “Marketplace outcomes are the ultimate measure of regulatory success. The objective is not simply to regulate licensed operators. The objective is to optimize the entire online gambling marketplace so that consumers choose to enter, remain within, and benefit from the regulated sector.”

The Next Phase For Nigeria, and for Africa

As Nigeria continues to modernise its gaming regulatory framework following the Supreme Court’s affirmation of state regulatory authority and the growing sophistication of state gaming regulators, the GCI findings arrive at a critical moment for policymakers and industry stakeholders not just in Nigeria, but as a proof of concept the rest of the continent will be watching.

The country has already demonstrated that stronger regulation can reduce reliance on illegal operators relative to many African peers. The next challenge is scaling that success: in Nigeria, where 44% of the market is now captured but 56% still is not; and across the other 53 nations of Africa, where regulated operators on average capture less than a quarter of a $23 billion marketplace, and where in some regions, like North Africa, regulation barely exists in practice at all.

That will require closer collaboration between regulators, licensed operators, payment providers, technology platforms and digital intermediaries to ensure that the regulated market remains competitive enough to attract consumers while preserving the standards expected of a modern gaming industry.