Unregulated Online Gambling Dominates Africa’s Digital Betting Market as Morocco and North Africa Face Regulatory Challenges

Somewhere in Morocco this month, a football supporter watches an online stream of a match that was never officially sold by a licensed broadcaster, while advertisements for a betting company appear alongside the action despite the operator having no Moroccan gambling license, paying no local taxes, and operating outside the authority of domestic regulators. Across Africa, this same pattern has become increasingly common, reflecting the scale and complexity of an online gambling market where unregulated activity now represents the overwhelming majority of industry revenue.

A new report by Gaming Compliance International (GCI), a regulatory technology and consultancy company, has quantified the size of this growing divide. Published this month under the title “Online Gaming 2024-2025: Africa,” the report examines the complete online gambling ecosystem across every African country, measuring both regulated operators and those operating outside official regulatory frameworks.

The study’s primary finding highlights the extent of the challenge facing regulators across the continent. In 2025, Africa’s online gambling market generated total gross gaming revenue of $23 billion. However, only 23 percent of that amount, equivalent to $5.2 billion, was generated through regulated operators. The remaining 77 percent, representing $17.8 billion, flowed through the unregulated market.

Although the proportion of regulated activity increased slightly, GCI noted that the continued expansion of the overall gambling sector meant the unregulated market still grew significantly in absolute financial terms. In 2024, the total online gambling market was valued at $20 billion, with regulated operators accounting for 22 percent and unregulated operators representing 78 percent. Therefore, despite the regulated sector gaining a one-percentage-point increase in market share, the unregulated sector continued expanding as the entire industry grew. The number of unregulated operators active throughout Africa also increased from 3,644 in 2024 to 4,129 in 2025.

Despite these figures, GCI said the situation also includes evidence of improvement and potential progress for regulators seeking to strengthen oversight of online gambling markets.

“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,” said Matt Holt, CEO of GCI.

“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.”

The report defines gross gaming revenue as the amount wagered by customers after deducting winnings paid back to them. Its analysis focuses exclusively on online gambling activity, including sports betting and casino products such as poker, and does not include physical gambling venues or land-based operations.

For Morocco and other countries in North Africa, the regional figures reveal one of the most significant regulatory gaps identified in the study. GCI divides Africa into five geographic regions, and North Africa—which includes Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia—recorded the weakest regulatory position on the continent.

The region generated $2.8 billion in online gambling revenue during 2025, but only 0.3 percent of that amount, approximately $9 million, came through regulated operators. The remaining 99.7 percent, representing nearly the entire market value of $2.8 billion, was classified as unregulated. This gave North Africa the highest unregulated market share among all African regions, exceeding East Africa’s 85 percent, Southern Africa’s 72 percent, West Africa’s 69 percent, and Central Africa’s 78 percent.

GCI’s country-level assessment showed an even more severe picture for Morocco. The organization’s market table listed Morocco as having a 100 percent unregulated online gambling market, alongside Egypt, Algeria, and Libya. Tunisia recorded a slightly lower figure, though still with 96 percent of its market operating outside regulated channels.

The consequences of this lack of regulated activity were reflected in GCI’s scoring model, which evaluates markets against an ideal score of 100 based on factors including taxation, licensing accessibility, product availability, payment systems, enforcement effectiveness, and the share of activity conducted through regulated operators. Africa received an overall score of 10 out of 100 in 2025, improving slightly from 9 in 2024. North Africa received a score of zero in both years, making it the only region on the continent to receive no points.

Another measurement used by GCI, known as audience exposure, evaluates whether the gambling-related content encountered by consumers comes from regulated or unregulated sources. The company considers this an early indicator of where future gambling revenue is likely to flow. North Africa recorded 100 percent unregulated audience exposure in both 2024 and 2025, meaning the report identified virtually no regulated gambling presence reaching consumers online in the region.

The broader scale of participation demonstrates the size of the challenge facing African regulators. GCI estimates that 14 percent of Africa’s population, or approximately 215 million people, engaged with online gambling activities in 2025. This represented an increase from 13 percent, or 198 million people, in 2024. Across the continent, 89 percent of gambling-related audience exposure in 2025 involved unregulated content, compared with only 11 percent connected to regulated operators.

The dominance of unregulated gambling also carries significant financial consequences for governments. GCI estimates that African countries lost approximately $3.55 billion in potential tax revenue in 2025, calculated using a 20 percent tax rate applied to unregulated revenue. The $17.8 billion generated by unregulated operators represented economic activity that produced no domestic tax income, licensing advantages, employment opportunities, or related economic benefits within the countries where consumers spent their money.

Compared with other global markets, Africa’s regulated market share is not dramatically different from some other regions. The continent’s 23 percent regulated share in 2025 was similar to the global average of 22 percent, Europe’s 23 percent, and North America’s 24 percent. Latin America recorded the highest regulated share at 27 percent, while Asia-Pacific recorded the lowest at just 6 percent. However, GCI argued that Africa’s particular challenge lies in the rapid professionalization and expansion of the unregulated sector.

The report identified several factors contributing to the growth of illegal online gambling. One of the most significant drivers is unauthorized sports streaming. According to GCI, unregulated gambling advertisements appeared on more than 83 percent of illegal sports streams in Africa during 2024 and 2025. The company also highlighted recruitment and promotional activity linked to major sporting events, including domestic football competitions, the UEFA Champions League, and the FIFA World Cup, as periods when unregulated gambling activity experiences major increases.

GCI based its recommendations around what it describes as the MPEO framework: Monitor, Police, Enforce, and Optimize. The organization argues that effective gambling regulation cannot rely solely on licensing legitimate operators. Instead, regulators must address the entire marketplace because consumers encounter both regulated and unregulated providers within the same digital environment. According to the report, the true measure of regulatory success is whether consumers choose to remain within the regulated market.

This perspective was reinforced by Ismail Vali, President of GCI, who argued that Africa’s online gambling markets should be evaluated based on their future economic opportunities rather than only their current regulatory shortcomings.

“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,” he said.

“The challenge is not creating demand. The challenge is ensuring that demand is captured within the regulated sector.”

GCI emphasized that regulated operators face structural disadvantages when competing with unregulated competitors because illegal operators avoid taxation, licensing costs, and compliance obligations. As a result, they can often offer more attractive pricing, broader product options, and larger promotions. When consumers move toward unregulated platforms, regulatory protections such as responsible gambling requirements, self-exclusion programs, and consumer safeguards no longer apply.

Vali argued that regulators should focus on overall marketplace performance rather than simply measuring the number of licensed operators or regulatory activity.

“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.”

GCI, which acquired gambling surveillance company Yield Sec in November 2025, presented its findings as an opportunity for improvement rather than an unavoidable failure of regulation. For Morocco and its North African neighbors, the report suggests that even limited progress in areas such as regulatory policy, taxation, payment controls, product availability, market optimization, and enforcement could significantly alter outcomes because the regulated sector currently occupies only a very small portion of the overall market.

By fLEXI tEAM