Key Points
- A draft audit covering July 2023 to December 2025 found licensed operators owe Br27.5 billion ($167M) in unpaid commissions, penalties and fees, having paid only 12% of assessed commissions.
- Since the December 2025 total shutdown, Fana Media Corporation investigations report Br20 billion in unlicensed betting transactions recorded in September 2026 alone, compared to Br4.7 billion for all of 2023.
- The Ethiopian Lottery Service is developing a unified digital monitoring system and preparing a tighter regulatory framework before any relaunch, with no confirmed date set.
A draft audit reported by Fana Broadcasting Corporate found that licensed betting operators in Ethiopia processed approximately Br199 billion ($1.21 billion) in transactions between July 2023 and December 2025, the period from when operators first received licences until their suspension. The government assessed roughly Br30 billion ($182 million) in commissions against that activity. Operators paid Br3.6 billion of it, roughly 12% of the assessed commissions, leaving Br27.5 billion ($167 million) outstanding in unpaid commissions, penalties, licence renewal fees and registration charges. Those figures remain subject to the completion of the audit process and any subsequent recovery action.
The Debt Is Concentrated, But the Problem Is Not
Dash Betting alone accounts for Br8.64 billion ($52.4 million) of the outstanding balance, roughly 31% of the total. Around ten other licensed firms collectively owe close to Br19 billion ($115 million). Ethiopian Lottery Service CEO Beza Girma confirmed the findings to Fana, stating the investigation was conducted “to generate evidence-based insights to guide ongoing structural reforms” and that the institution would pursue legal measures to recover funds once the audit process is finalised. The debt figure is not only about missed commission payments; it captures regulatory failure across several obligation types simultaneously.
A Sector That Outran the Rules Designed to Govern It
The audit statistics come within a bigger growth story, one which illustrates the wide discrepancy between the actions taken by the operators and those taken by the government for oversight. During 2022, the yearly turnover from all betting activities in the industry was a mere Br4.7 billion; but by September 2025, the monthly turnover had reached about Br20 billion. This shows that the level of activity during one month in the last year of operation surpassed the annual volume seen three years prior. Growth was fast and came as a result of mobile technology, digital transactions and online betting systems.
December 2025: The Shutdown and What Followed
Enforcement came in two stages. On 4 December 2025, the ELS suspended the licences of 22 betting companies, a move whose effective date was recorded as 25 November, following intelligence from the National Intelligence and Security Service that operators had allegedly concealed over Br100 billion in government revenue. Twenty-four individuals, including company owners and associates, were arrested across Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. Eleven days after the initial suspensions were announced, the ELS revoked all remaining sports betting licences nationwide, ordered banks and payment gateways to block all betting-related transactions, and directed operators to preserve server and financial records. By late January 2026, all 24 arrested individuals had been released from custody with no public explanation from authorities of whether charges were dropped, transferred, or remain pending.
Nine Months Later, the Unlicensed Market Is Still Active
As per the directive of ELS in July 2026, there was no sports betting licensee with a valid licence in Ethiopia, and thus citizens were warned not to make any deposits on any website, mobile application or social media page that promoted betting services. There was an indication that what the warning was based on had some bearing. As reported by Fana Media Corporation, there was Br20 billion worth of transactions made via betting service providers without licences in September 2026 as compared to the Br4.7 billion recorded for the year 2023. The enforcement kept increasing; in August 2026, 38 betting service providers were targeted on charges termed ‘economic sabotage’ by the Government Communication Service.
What the Planned Relaunch Actually Requires?
The ELS is now developing a unified digital monitoring system to track operator transactions and financial obligations in real time, providing the visibility that was absent during the sector’s initial run. A parliamentary debate in February 2026 raised the question of whether dual-ministry oversight of the sector had weakened enforcement, with Girma acknowledging that divided regulatory authority had complicated compliance efforts. No relaunch date has been confirmed. The ELS states the return of licensed sports betting and digital lottery services depends on the completion of the current audit and the finalisation of new structural conditions.
Analysis
There is something worth sitting with in the September 2026 unlicensed transaction figure. The licensed market was shut down entirely in December 2025, yet Fana’s investigations report Br20 billion moving through unlicensed platforms in a single month of 2026, against Br4.7 billion for the whole of 2023. We are not suggesting the ban directly caused that increase; the unlicensed market may have been growing regardless. What the data does raise is a harder question: if a total prohibition, bank-level freezes and active enforcement against 38 enterprises in August 2026 have not arrested unlicensed activity, what specific mechanism in the planned digital monitoring system will? The audit establishes what was owed. It does not yet answer whether a relaunched licensed market can compete with, and therefore absorb, the volume now moving through unlicensed channels. Ethiopia’s Lottery Service has pointed to technology and tighter oversight as the answer. We think the credibility of the enforcement apparatus itself, given that 24 arrested individuals were released without public explanation, may be the harder problem to solve before operators or players trust any new framework.
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