Key Points
- First, the deadline for submitting bids for both gambling tech tenders has been further extended to 11:00 on 26 November 2026 – that is, some three more weeks than it had been originally announced.
- As a non-local business, you would be glad to know that you can participate in the bidding process as well – that too, provided that you find a partner company which is a 51% locally-owned Namibian company.
- The regulator purchasing the systems is not yet fully operational, according to its own minister.
Namibia Gambling Tender: Deadline Extension for Bidders
For quite some time, companies have been waiting to submit their bids for Namibian gambling tech contracts, but, all this while it was a case of “wait and see” because of uncertainty with regard to deadlines and rules.
A Public Notice issued by the Namibia Gambling Board on 2 November provided further details about the second extension to the deadline date. Needless to say, this only contributed to the confusion that already surrounded the entire bid.
What Is the Difference between the Two Systems, Anyway?
The first tender (SC/RP/GBN01/2026) is concerned with the Central Electronic Monitoring System, which is basically a technological solution for monitoring and reporting all transactions made in the sphere of gambling. The term of the contract is expected to be six months, but the exact length of the contract has not been disclosed yet.
The second tender (SC/RP/GBN02/2026) concerns itself with such mundane aspects as licensing, workflow and document management. Here, the operators will have to submit their license applications online and the Board will be able to control everything through the same system. The period of the contract is 60 months.
Oddly, the tender notice itself makes no mention of a contract value, and so far, no successful bidder has been named.
Getting Past the 51% Hurdle Isn’t Easy (Anymore)
What’s also been making the bidding process a bit awkward is the issue of local ownership. Trade reports say the Board has been looking at National Preference and decided to flip the script, so now only bidders with at least 51% ownership by Namibian citizens can get in on the action.
However, just owning 51% of the shares doesn’t get you an automatic pass, you also need to belong to an eligible category. There are a few of these recognised categories, but if you’re not part of one, then you can still submit a bid if you can line up a Namibian partner to run the show. Even in a joint venture, though, the Namibians have to call the shots, which is another way of saying they need to retain at least 51% ownership and control.
Two Notices, Two Extensions and One New Closing Date
The bids opened on 21 September with the first closing date being 29 October. Pre-proposal conferences were set for 1 October.
On 9 October, the Board published Public Notice 003, delaying the closing date to 5 November. The reason for this change was “a high volume of requests for clarification on the said tenders”.
Subsequently, Public Notice 004 delayed the closing date once more, setting it to 26 November. The initial closing date has been rescheduled thus by four weeks.
Notice 004 instructed the bidders to “follow the bidding document and any clarifications or addenda formally issued by the Procuring Entity”.
The Board Is Not Finished With Recruiting its Staff
The agency that will purchase the systems is not yet operational. According to Indileni Daniel, the Gambling Board needs to recruit additional staff members.
According to her, lack of staffing affects such activities as licensing, consumer education, treatment services, and the collection of fees and levies. Minister Daniel pointed out the challenges associated with regulating online gambling.
“Effective regulation, especially for online gambling, is currently a challenge at the moment, not only in Namibia but globally.”
In the accountability report for 2023/24, the Ministry of Finance set a NAD5 million target for income from gambling levies but no collections were reported.
Minister Daniel said separately that the Gambling Trust Fund had collected NAD17 million so far.
The Operators Must Pay Fees to Obtain Information for the Tax Authorities
Proposed regulatory amendments will oblige the operators to contribute to the maintenance costs of the monitoring system. The reports about consultations indicate a proposed maintenance fee of 1% of gross income. Another proposed fee is a 5% monitoring fee on net monthly income.
Under the current laws of 2021, casinos, gambling halls, bars, and shebeens have to pay 10% of their gross monthly revenue. License holders for totalisators have to pay 10% of gross monthly revenue.
The Chairperson of the Gambling Board Ben Shikongo proposed that “the government expedite the process of gazetting the fees, especially where they used to be high”.
Namibia Revenue Agency has also signed an agreement for collaboration with the Gambling Board in March to get information regarding operators and gambling winnings.
How Gambling Reforms in Namibia Became Reality?
In April 2025 Daniel promised to breathe new life into the sector during the first meeting with the ministry officials. At that moment, both the Gambling and Lottery Boards were practically out of operation due to reports about unlicensed slot machines.
Then the government started nationwide consultations within all 14 regions, from March 24th to April 9th 2026.
But that wasn’t the end of consultations, we had 6 more regional meetings take place between the 5th and 14th of October in Keetmanshoop, Swakopmund, Oshakati, Rundu, Otjiwarongo and Windhoek, and a workshop for bookmaker and totalizator applicants was scheduled for October 15th where the technicalities of the checks required for gambling platforms were laid out.
What Happens After the 26th?
First of all those submissions from the regional meetings need to be collated in Windhoek. Regulations still have to be gazetted and if there are any changes to the primary legislation then parliament needs to sign off on them.
The final rules will determine which fees will be charged and how these fees relate to the existing levies under the 2021 regulations.
Expert Analysis: Namibia Is Buying the Technology Before Having Enough Staff to Run It
We think there are a few things about the order of events that raise some eyebrows. They’re still in the process of recruiting staff, yet they’re buying a system to monitor all licensed gamblers, and not just that, it’s a system designed to monitor every single one of those operators.
And the problem is that software alone cannot be used to recover the outstanding levies. People with the authority and power should handle this debt of NAD5 million which is supposed to be zero according to the Ministry of Finance report and this report only undermines the status quo even further.
We should also mention another issue related to changes in ownership requirements in the middle of the bidding process. The fact is that foreign technology firms had time to prepare their offers, and now they will be forced to find a suitable Namibian partner within only 3 weeks. Finding a suitable partner in 3 weeks might not be the easiest task.
There are some readers who can hold another opinion about it. A tough local ownership requirement is exactly what a regulator with limited capacity needs right now. Some people think that such timing is too convenient for local firms. However, the board says that it was part of the policy all along. We could not find any evidence to support the preferential treatment theory, so we are considering this issue as a policy change.
Both sides have certain merits. The crucial question here is whether the board will be able to monitor joint ventures after the awards are done. We will also be observing how they will define and enforce ‘effective control’ since it is not really clear from the reports what it means.
In other words, Namibia will purchase the systems but there are still a lot of issues about who will operate and control them.
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