Legal casino gambling age in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso regulates gambling through a system of prior state authorisation built around a state monopoly. Law No. 027-2008/AN of 8 May 2008 makes every game of chance and every gaming establishment subject to the revocable authorisation of the Minister of Finance. A 2010 decree grants the Loterie Nationale Burkinabè (LONAB), a state-owned company, exclusive rights over lotteries and sports betting, including horse-race betting. Casinos may be authorised separately under strict conditions. The 2008 framework says nothing specific about online gambling. In February 2025 the telecoms regulator asked network operators to block unauthorised online gaming platforms, and on 19 March 2026 the Council of Ministers adopted a decree intended to give LONAB exclusive rights over online games of chance. This guide sets out the legal framework, how it is enforced, the position of players, taxation and the protection measures available.
Key points
- Law No. 027-2008/AN on the regulation of games of chance requires prior, revocable authorisation from the Minister of Finance, in conjunction with the Minister of Security, for every game of chance and gaming establishment.
- Decree No. 2010-822 grants LONAB exclusivity over sports betting (including the PMU’B horse-race betting product and football betting) and over lotteries, loto and instant lotteries.
- LONAB launched an online sports-betting platform, LONABET, in December 2023. In February 2025 the telecoms regulator ARCEP asked operators to block online gaming platforms, according to press reports.
- On 19 March 2026 the Council of Ministers adopted a decree on the concession of games of chance to LONAB, with the main aim of giving it exclusive rights over online games of chance. Publication of the signed text could not be confirmed.
- Winnings from bets and games of chance are subject to a final withholding tax of 15% since 1 January 2023 (previously 10%).
Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.
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Historical development
State involvement in gambling in Burkina Faso dates from shortly after independence. According to LONAB’s own institutional history, the national lottery was created on 10 May 1967 by Ordinance No. 67-025/PRES/MFC, which was amended in August 1967 and substantially revised by Ordinance No. 78-062 of 15 June 1978. LONAB operated as a public industrial and commercial establishment (établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial, EPIC) until Decree No. 94-415 of 21 November 1994 converted it into a state-owned company (société d’État). It is run by a director general appointed by decree in the Council of Ministers and governed by a nine-member board of state representatives and one staff representative.
LONAB describes its mission as mobilising financial resources for national development through the organisation and operation of games of chance, with profits directed to socio-economic, sporting and cultural projects (LONAB, missions). Its best-known product is the PMU’B, an off-course pari-mutuel bet on horse races. The products listed on its website also include live race broadcasts (Espace Course en Direct, ECD), the TCE draw, Faso Pari, Faso Cash, Tombola Minute Plus and Télé Fortune, and the 2010 concession decree covers classic lotteries, loto and instant lotteries.
The general law on games of chance was replaced in 2008. Law No. 027-2008/AN expressly repealed the 1978 ordinance on the national lottery and set up a general authorisation regime, which was given effect through implementing texts adopted at the end of 2010 (Law No. 027-2008/AN). In the decade that followed, the main enforcement concern was unauthorised slot machines installed in public places, often in rural areas, which the authorities seized in large numbers in 2021 (see below). From 2023 attention shifted to online betting, which the 2008 framework had not anticipated.
Legal framework
Law No. 027-2008/AN on games of chance
The central statute is Law No. 027-2008/AN of 8 May 2008 on the regulation of games of chance in Burkina Faso (loi portant réglementation des jeux de hasard au Burkina Faso). It was promulgated by Decree No. 2008-330/PRES of 19 June 2008 and published in the Journal officiel No. 26 of 26 June 2008. Its main provisions are:
- Scope (Article 1): the law sets the conditions for operating games of chance, the control arrangements and the tax regime.
- Prior authorisation (Article 2): every game of chance and every gaming establishment requires the prior authorisation of the minister responsible for finance, granted after a procedure conducted with the minister responsible for security. The authorisation is revocable, and its withdrawal gives no right to compensation.
- Definitions (Article 3): games of chance include lotteries, sports and horse-race betting, loto and tombolas, table games such as roulette and blackjack, and machine games including slot machines, with a catch-all clause for any public game with stakes in which winning depends on chance.
- Approval of rules (Article 4): the Minister of Finance must approve the rules of every type of game.
- Reserved games (Articles 5 to 7): the State may reserve certain games to itself or to a national public body, and the Minister of Finance may authorise sub-regional games run by foreign public bodies on a reciprocal basis, as well as games run by recognised charities.
- Control (Article 8): the finance and security ministers jointly supervise operations, establishments and equipment.
- Sanctions (Articles 9 and 10): keeping a gaming house, operating chance-based machines or running unauthorised lotteries, betting or tombolas in public places is punishable under the Penal Code, in addition to administrative sanctions; funds and equipment are confiscated to the Treasury.
- Tax (Article 11): authorised games are subject to ordinary taxation and may carry specific levies.
The 2008 law does not mention LONAB, casinos or the internet by name, and it contains no provision on minors. These matters are dealt with in implementing texts or in LONAB’s own rules.
Implementing decrees and orders
Decree No. 2010-822/PRES/PM/MEF/SECU of 31 December 2010, published in the Journal officiel of 3 February 2011, implements Article 5 of the 2008 law. Article 2 concedes to LONAB “l’exclusivité” (exclusive rights) over sports betting, including horse-race betting such as the PMU’B and live race broadcasts, football betting and betting on virtual or simulated competitions, and over the distribution and sale of lottery tickets, including classic lotteries, loto and instant lotteries. LONAB may organise other games of chance only with authorisation from the Minister of Finance, and its participation in sub-regional or international games requires a ministerial order.
Casinos are governed by a separate decree of the same date, No. 2010-829, and by an interministerial order on the procedures for opening casinos. The order restricts applicants to Burkinabè public limited companies (sociétés anonymes) with a board of directors. Casinos must be located in hotels of at least four stars or buildings of equivalent standing. Casinos outside hotels must be at least 300 metres from places of worship, schools, health facilities and markets. Applicants must pay a special stamp duty of 1,000,000 CFA francs, lodge a bank guarantee and obtain the favourable opinion of the mayor. Two separate authorisations from the Minister of Finance are needed, one for fitting out the premises and one for opening. Slot machines must be in rooms separate from table games. The text of Decree No. 2010-829 itself could not be consulted for this guide.
Anti-money-laundering law
Law No. 046-2024/ALT, adopted by the Transitional Legislative Assembly on 30 December 2024, is Burkina Faso’s current anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing statute. Article 2 lists “casinos, including internet casinos, and gaming establishments, including national lotteries” among designated non-financial businesses and professions. Article 48 prohibits operating such a business without prior authorisation or registration, and Article 50 requires casinos to verify the identity of players buying or exchanging chips above a threshold set by the competent authority and to keep registers for at least ten years.
Regulator and licensing model
Burkina Faso has no independent gambling regulator. Regulatory power rests with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which grants authorisations, approves game rules and supervises operators jointly with the Ministry of Security under Articles 2, 4 and 8 of the 2008 law. LONAB is a concessionaire of the State, not a regulator.
The resulting model has three tiers:
- A statutory monopoly: LONAB holds exclusive rights over lotteries and sports betting under Decree No. 2010-822. A monopoly in this sense is an exclusive right reserved by law to one operator, so that no other operator can be authorised for those products.
- Authorised gaming establishments: casinos and slot-machine establishments may be authorised by the Minister of Finance under the 2010 casino rules and a 2014 decree on slot-machine establishments (Decree No. 2014-347, cited by the National Police in 2021).
- Other authorised games: charitable lotteries and other speculative games may be authorised case by case.
No official published list of authorised casinos or slot-machine establishments was found during research for this guide, so the number of operating venues cannot be stated. LONAB reported that it achieved 102% of its targets for the first half of 2026, but no absolute turnover figures were published with that announcement (Focus Gaming News, August 2026). Figures in the 2025 finance bill’s explanatory memorandum indicate the scale of some LONAB activities: turnover from live race broadcasts, the Tombola Minute and Télé Fortune was reported at 64.6 billion CFA francs in 2021, up from 44.5 billion in 2019 (explanatory memorandum to the 2025 finance bill).
Online gambling and enforcement
The regulatory gap
The 2008 law and its 2010 implementing decrees do not address online gambling directly. The government itself acknowledged this in the Council of Ministers report of 19 March 2026, which noted that after more than fifteen years the framework suffered from “l’absence de régulation des jeux de hasard en ligne” (the absence of regulation of online games of chance), had become outdated in relation to technology, and allowed unauthorised operators to run online games outside state control. Because sports betting and lotteries are reserved to LONAB in any form, any other operator offering those products to residents online lacks the authorisation that the 2008 law requires. The legal position of online casino-style games, which no text specifically covers, is less clear.
LONAB’s online offer
LONAB launched an online sports-betting product officially on 26 December 2023 at a ceremony overseen by the Minister of Economy, Finance and Prospective (LONAB, launch announcement). Players register and bet by mobile phone, including through a smartphone app, and fund accounts through mobile money services (Wakat Séra, 21 December 2023). The product, part of LONAB’s Faso Pari range, offers single and combined bets and live betting. It is now marketed as LONABET: a LONAB regional director told the press in June 2024 that LONABET had been developed to counter operators that “occupent illégalement le marché des jeux en ligne” (illegally occupy the online gaming market), a claim attributed to him rather than to any legal text (Wakat Séra, 4 June 2024).
Blocking of online platforms (2025)
In February 2025 the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (ARCEP) wrote to mobile operators and other internet service providers asking them to block online gaming platforms, according to a Wakat Séra report of 23 February 2025. Blocking means instructing network operators to prevent access from within the country to specified websites or apps. The published report did not reproduce the letter’s legal basis, reference number or the list of platforms concerned, and the official letter could not be consulted directly for this guide. The report also does not say whether any platforms were exempted.
Slot machines and land-based enforcement
Enforcement against unauthorised gaming has so far been most visible offline. On 17 February 2021 the National Police announced that more than 5,000 slot machines had been seized in unannounced inspections carried out with the Public Treasury. The police stated that operating such machines without prior authorisation was “contraire aux textes en vigueur” (contrary to the texts in force), citing Law No. 027-2008/AN and Decree No. 2014-347 on slot-machine establishments, and said the machines had been placed in busy areas of towns and villages where minors were the main target (Wakat Séra, 17 February 2021). At a press conference in June 2021, the Directorate General of the Treasury and the police reported that 2,360 “non-conventional” machines had been seized as of 31 May 2021, under a national strategy to combat their spread drawn up in 2019 (Wakat Séra, 9 June 2021).
No specific statutory rules on gambling advertising were identified, and no published payment-blocking measures were found.
Position of players
Law No. 027-2008/AN is directed at those who organise and operate games of chance. Its penal provisions concern keeping gaming houses, operating machines and running unauthorised lotteries, betting or tombolas. No provision was found in the law or the 2010 decrees that makes it an offence for an individual to place a bet or play with an unauthorised operator, and no reported prosecution or fine of a player was found. This should not be read as a guarantee: the penal provisions refer to the Penal Code, whose relevant articles could not be checked in full for this guide.
In practice, players who use platforms without Burkinabè authorisation have no local regulator to which they can complain and no legal assurance that winnings will be paid. The ARCEP blocking request of February 2025 also means that such services may be unavailable or interrupted. LONAB’s games, including LONABET, are restricted to people aged 18 and over, as stated on LONAB’s website.
Taxation
Gambling winnings are taxed at source. The Ministry of Economy and Finance’s guide to the new tax measures for 2023 states that the final withholding tax (retenue libératoire) on winnings from betting and other games of chance under Article 223 of the General Tax Code (Code général des impôts, CGI) rose from 10% to 15% with effect from 1 January 2023. A final withholding tax is deducted by the operator when paying out and discharges the winner’s liability.
For operators, the explanatory memorandum to the 2025 finance bill describes two parallel 5% charges: games on which LONAB holds a monopoly bear a 5% stamp duty under Article 517 of the CGI, while other games of chance are subject to a 5% tax on games of chance under Article 348. The memorandum also notes that LONAB’s live race broadcasts, Tombola Minute and Télé Fortune escaped both charges, and proposed applying the 5% tax on games of chance to all games and repealing Article 517. In the text of Law No. 042-2024/ALT, the finance law for 2025 consulted for this guide, no amendment to Articles 348 or 517 was found, so whether the harmonisation was enacted could not be confirmed. That law does amend Article 525 of the CGI, which keeps a 1,000,000 CFA franc stamp duty on applications to open a gaming establishment.
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Burkina Faso has no national self-exclusion register and no dedicated public gambling helpline was identified. Self-exclusion is a scheme through which a player asks to be barred from gambling for a set period. Protection measures are mainly those adopted by LONAB:
- Age limit: LONAB states that its games are prohibited to anyone under 18 (LONAB, responsible gaming). The 2008 law itself contains no age rule.
- Certification: LONAB is a member of the World Lottery Association and reports certification at levels 1 (September 2012) and 2 (March 2015) of its responsible gaming framework.
- Responsible gaming policy (2026): in a communiqué published on 13 August 2026, LONAB announced a new policy based on responsible governance, responsible design and marketing of games with clear information on rules, odds and the risks of excessive play, and prevention and awareness work, with particular attention to minors and vulnerable people. Focus Gaming News reported that the policy took effect on 4 August 2026 (Focus Gaming News, 19 August 2026).
Concern about young people has featured in enforcement statements: the 2021 slot-machine seizures were justified in part by the targeting of minors. People who need help can contact general health services, and general guidance is available in our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
- December 2023: LONABET. LONAB launched online sports betting on 26 December 2023.
- December 2024: anti-money-laundering law. Law No. 046-2024/ALT brought casinos, including internet casinos, and national lotteries within the AML regime.
- February 2025: blocking. ARCEP asked network operators to block online gaming platforms, according to press reports of 23 February 2025.
- 19 March 2026: online gaming decree. The Council of Ministers adopted a draft decree “portant concession, modalités d’organisation, d’exploitation et de contrôle des jeux de hasard” to LONAB, presented by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Its main aim is to give LONAB exclusive rights to organise and operate online games of chance; the government expects better player protection, traceability of financial flows, higher tax revenue and more funding for LONAB’s social programmes (Council of Ministers, 19 March 2026). The signed decree and its publication in the Journal officiel could not be found as of 13 October 2026, so its date of entry into force and detailed content remain unconfirmed.
- August 2026: responsible gaming policy. LONAB adopted a new responsible gaming policy and reported meeting 102% of its first-half 2026 targets.
Taken together, these steps point towards a model in which online gambling is lawful only through LONAB. Readers should check for publication of the 2026 decree, which would settle the status of online casino-style games and of any partnerships between LONAB and other operators.
Casino listings for players in Burkina Faso
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is authorised in Burkina Faso, where no regulator publishes a register of online operators and the government’s March 2026 decree is designed to reserve online games of chance to LONAB. Platforms without Burkinabè authorisation may be blocked, and the listings must not be read as an indication that playing on them is lawful. See the Council of Ministers report of 19 March 2026 and LONAB’s official website.
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Sources and further reading
- Burkina Faso, National Assembly, Loi n° 027-2008/AN du 8 mai 2008 portant réglementation des jeux de hasard au Burkina Faso (2008; text hosted by the Académie de Police, accessed 13 October 2026).
- Burkina Faso, Government, Décret n° 2010-822/PRES/PM/MEF/SECU portant conditions d’organisation et de contrôle des jeux de hasard concédés à la LONAB (2010; text hosted by the Académie de Police, accessed 13 October 2026).
- Burkina Faso, Ministries of Finance and Security, Arrêté interministériel portant modalités d’ouverture des casinos (text hosted by the Académie de Police, accessed 13 October 2026).
- Government of Burkina Faso, Compte rendu du Conseil des ministres n° 10 du 19 mars 2026 (2026).
- Assemblée législative de transition, Loi n° 046-2024/ALT relative à la lutte contre le blanchiment de capitaux, le financement du terrorisme et de la prolifération des armes de destruction massive (2024).
- Assemblée législative de transition, Loi n° 042-2024/ALT portant loi de finances pour l’exécution du budget de l’État, exercice 2025 (2024).
- Assemblée législative de transition, Exposé des motifs du projet de loi de finances, exercice 2025 (2024).
- Ministère de l’Économie, des Finances et de la Prospective, Livret sur les mesures fiscales nouvelles 2023 (2023).
- Loterie Nationale Burkinabè, Présentation (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Loterie Nationale Burkinabè, Missions (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Loterie Nationale Burkinabè, Le jeu responsable (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Loterie Nationale Burkinabè, Lancement du Pari Sportif (2023).
- Burkina24, Communiqué: LONAB, une nouvelle politique pour promouvoir le Jeu Responsable au Burkina Faso (13 August 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, LONAB adopts new responsible-gambling policy in Burkina Faso (19 August 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, LONAB reports 102% H1 target achievement in Burkina Faso (17 August 2026).
- Wakat Séra, Burkina/Jeu de hasard: plus de 5.000 machines à sous saisies (17 February 2021).
- Wakat Séra, Burkina: plus de 2 300 machines à sous «non conventionnelles» saisies (9 June 2021).
- Wakat Séra, « Pari Sportif », le nouveau jeu en ligne de la LONAB (21 December 2023).
- Wakat Séra, Paris sportifs: à Ouahigouya, c’est LONABET «qui est doux à l’heure là» (4 June 2024).
- Wakat Séra, Burkina: blocage des plateformes d’exploitation de jeux en ligne (23 February 2025).
