Benin regulates gambling through a short statute from 2004 that starts from a general prohibition and then creates two exceptions: a public operator, which today is the Loterie Nationale du Bénin S.A. (LNB), and private Beninese companies authorised individually by decree of the Council of Ministers. In practice the LNB holds the lottery market on its own, while sports betting, casinos and gaming machines have been opened to a limited number of authorised private operators. A dedicated supervisory unit for the gaming sector was created in 2023, but Benin has no comprehensive online gambling law, no published register of licensed online operators and no public website-blocking list.
Key points
- Law No. 2002-28 of 29 March 2004 prohibits all games of chance, money games and betting except those run by the public operator or by private Beninese legal entities authorised by decree of the Council of Ministers.
- The LNB, founded in 1967, is a public limited company (société anonyme). The State sold part of its capital on the regional stock exchange (BRVM) in October 2024, and the shares were listed in December 2024.
- The LNB is described as holding a monopoly on lottery games; sports betting and casino games are also offered by authorised private operators, and a Gaming Sector Supervision Unit (Cellule de Supervision du secteur des Jeux, CSJ) has overseen the sector since 2023.
- No online casino licensing regime comparable to those in Europe has been identified. The LNB reports that unlicensed betting websites and slot machines have spread and that enforcement has been slow.
- Winnings from LNB games have been subject to a 15% final withholding since July 2020, and the Finance Law for 2025 changed the taxation of casinos and online games.
Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.
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Historical development
Organised gambling in Benin grew up around a state lottery. The LNB states that it was founded in 1967 and that it has diversified its activities over the decades while financing social, cultural and sporting projects and contributing to public policy against illegal gambling (Government of Benin, share offer announcement, 3 October 2024). Among the earlier provisions it replaced, the 2004 law expressly repealed the French law of 21 May 1836, which had prohibited lotteries.
The present framework dates from Law No. 2002-28 of 29 March 2004 on the regulation of games of chance, money games and betting, promulgated by President Mathieu Kérékou. It gave legal entities that were already running games 24 months to comply with the new rules. In 2011 the government approved new statutes for the LNB by Decree No. 2011-268 of 2 April 2011, which applies the 2004 law to the public operator.
The market expanded quickly in the 2010s. According to Sika Finance (26 February 2025), the LNB’s revenue rose from FCFA 8.2 billion in 2010 to FCFA 93.9 billion in 2023. Revenue for the gaming sector as a whole rose from FCFA 22.6 billion in 2018 to FCFA 159.2 billion in 2022. Over the same period the LNB’s share of sector revenue fell from 92% to 47%, as new operators entered, particularly in sports betting and casino games.
In March 2023 the government signalled that it regarded the sector as poorly controlled. At its meeting of 15 March 2023, the Council of Ministers resolved to end “unhealthy practices” in the sector, to update its legislation and to set up a control platform, and it authorised contracts with a specialist law firm and an experienced operator to that end (La Nouvelle Tribune, 15 March 2023). In October 2024 the State began the partial privatisation of the LNB through the BRVM, the regional stock exchange of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA).
Legal framework
Law No. 2002-28 of 29 March 2004
The 2004 law is short, with eight articles, and is available as a scanned copy on the portal of the Secretariat-General of the Government (sgg.gouv.bj). Its structure is that of a prohibition with exceptions:
- Scope (Article 1). The law covers the sale of lottery tickets, sports betting, horse-race betting, loto, slot machines and any operation offered to the public that creates a hope of gain through chance.
- General prohibition (Article 2). Games of chance, money games and betting “of every kind” are prohibited, subject to the following articles.
- Public operator (Article 3). A public industrial, commercial and social establishment, whose statutes are set by decree, may operate all forms of these games. Its net profits must be used for social, cultural or sporting investment.
- Private operators (Article 4). Private Beninese legal entities may operate games only after authorisation granted by decree of the Council of Ministers. The decree sets their operating conditions and the fees (redevances) they owe to the public establishment.
- Charitable tombolas (Article 5). Certain associations of public utility with social aims may be authorised to issue one series of tombola tickets a year.
- Penalties (Article 6). The person responsible for a legal entity that breaches Articles 2, 4 or 5 faces two to twelve months’ imprisonment and a fine of FCFA 500,000 to 5,000,000, or either penalty. Anyone who runs unauthorised games for money in public places faces one to six months’ imprisonment and a fine of FCFA 50,000 to 500,000. Penalties are doubled for repeat offences, and the funds, equipment and furniture used are confiscated.
The law does not use the word “monopoly”, does not mention casinos by name and does not refer to the internet. Slot machines are covered through the general definition in Article 1. The online copy is a scan, so exact wording should be checked against the official gazette.
Implementing decrees
Decree No. 2011-268 approved the statutes of the LNB. Two of its provisions matter for the wider market. The LNB’s board gives an opinion on applications for authorisation to operate games of chance, and the LNB may conclude partnership contracts with authorised private legal entities (Decree No. 2011-268). On 12 July 2023 the Council of Ministers adopted a decree on the conditions for carrying on games of chance, gambling and betting activities in Benin (Council of Ministers report, 12 July 2023; Benin Web TV). The decree’s number and full text could not be located on the official portal at the time of review.
Related legislation
Taxation of gambling is governed by the General Tax Code and the annual finance laws, discussed below. The LNB’s partial privatisation was authorised by Decree No. 2024-1018 of 17 July 2024 and approved by the regional financial markets authority (AMF-UMOA) under visa OA/24-01 of 19 August 2024 (Government of Benin). Whether the 2018 Penal Code contains separate gambling offences could not be confirmed from the text available online.
Regulator and licensing model
Benin’s model is best described as a mixed system: a historical public operator alongside private operators admitted case by case by government decree. It is neither a fully open licensing market, in which any qualified company may apply under published criteria, nor a pure monopoly, in which one operator holds exclusive rights over all products.
The Loterie Nationale du Bénin
The LNB is now a public limited company, LNB S.A. Before October 2024 the State held all of its FCFA 2 billion share capital (African Markets, 5 December 2024). The State offered between 35% and 45% of the shares at FCFA 4,800 each from 7 to 25 October 2024. According to the government, the offer closed at the top of the range, 45%, raising FCFA 43.2 billion; some market reports refer to 7 million shares, or 35%. The shares were first listed on the BRVM on 13 December 2024. The State remains the majority shareholder.
According to Sika Finance, the LNB holds a monopoly on lottery games, its highest-margin segment, with the Loto 5/90 as its main product. Trade reporting describes a network of about 3,000 points of sale and states that the LNB operates under a state-backed monopoly established by the 2004 law (Focus Gaming News, May 2026). That description should be read with care. The statute itself allows private operators to be authorised for any form of gambling, and in sports betting the LNB competes with them. Trade press reports that some private sports-betting operators are connected to the LNB’s systems and operate “under its licence” (Focus Gaming News, August 2026), consistent with the partnership mechanism in the 2011 statutes.
Private operators and the supervisory unit
Private operators need an individual authorisation adopted by decree in the Council of Ministers. Authorisations appear in the government’s weekly Council of Ministers reports. For example, on 12 July 2023 the Council renewed the authorisation of the company NG ASSOCIATES to operate online games and slot machines in high-end restaurants, hotels and bars (Benin Web TV). No consolidated public register of authorised operators, licence fees or licence durations was found.
In 2023 a Cellule de Supervision du secteur des Jeux (CSJ, Gaming Sector Supervision Unit) was created to supervise the activities of both the private operators and the LNB, the historic operator (Sika Finance). The source does not state which instrument created the CSJ, and no statute establishing it as an independent regulatory authority was found. On 24 June 2026 it awarded a FCFA 1.8 billion contract to the French technology company Sharp Vision to strengthen technical monitoring of the sector (Focus Gaming News, 19 August 2026). No official website for the CSJ was identified. Reports of a statutory “national gaming regulatory agency” for Benin could not be verified.
Casinos
Land-based casino gaming is authorised. Groupe Partouche, a French casino operator, opened a casino in the Sofitel Cotonou Marina hotel at the end of January 2025, its second in Africa (GGB Magazine, 29 January 2025). The group reported gross gaming revenue (GGR: stakes minus winnings paid) of about €0.9 million at the Cotonou casino for May to July 2026, about three times the figure for the same period of 2025 (Focus Gaming News, 10 September 2026). Slot machines may also be placed in authorised hotels, restaurants and bars, as the 2023 renewal for NG ASSOCIATES shows.
Online gambling and enforcement
What is permitted
Benin has no statute devoted to online gambling. The 2004 law applies to all forms of gambling regardless of channel, so online gambling is lawful only when offered by the LNB or by a private company holding an authorisation that covers it. In 2023 a trade publication summarised the position as online gambling being “not currently regulated” in Benin, while land-based casinos and sports betting were legal but poorly regulated (Gaming Intelligence, 17 March 2023). Since then, the July 2023 decree on the conditions for carrying on gambling activities, the creation of the CSJ and the 2025 tax changes have added some structure, but no published set of technical or player-protection rules for online operators was found.
Digital channels now dominate the LNB’s own business. Online games accounted for 68% of its 2025 revenue of FCFA 98.6 billion, and that segment grew by 18% (Focus Gaming News). In the first quarter of 2026, revenue from online sports betting rose by 28%, with a return to players of 95% (AllAfrica, 25 June 2026). From 1 September 2026 the LNB also accepts Loto 5/90 bets by mobile phone through USSD codes, a channel allocated by ARCEP, the electronic communications regulator, with payment by mobile money (Focus Gaming News, 3 September 2026).
Offshore and unlicensed operators
Offering gambling in Benin without an authorisation falls within the general prohibition in Article 2 of the 2004 law and the penalties in Article 6. The LNB nevertheless reports that illegal slot machines and unregistered betting sites are spreading. It says these operators pay no tax and are not subject to regulated payout caps, so they can offer players better odds. It identified more than ten illegal websites in a single quarter and reported them to the regulatory authorities, but described enforcement as slow (Daba Finance via AllAfrica, 8 May 2026). These are the operator’s own statements, not findings by a regulator.
Enforcement tools
Several countries enforce gambling law through blocking, meaning orders requiring internet service providers or payment institutions to deny access to, or payments to, unlicensed sites. No published blocklist, blocking order or payment-blocking measure aimed at gambling sites in Benin was found. Nor were specific rules on gambling advertising identified, apart from the LNB’s own internal policy described below. The March 2023 Council of Ministers decision listed the fight against illicit activity, tax evasion, money laundering and terrorist financing among the aims of the planned control platform.
Position of players
The 2004 law is directed at operators. Article 6 punishes the person responsible for a legal entity that runs games without authorisation, and anyone who runs unauthorised games for money in public places. It contains no provision that expressly makes it an offence to take part in a game or to place a bet with an unauthorised operator (Law No. 2002-28). No reported prosecution or fine of a player for gambling with an unlicensed online operator was found.
Absence of a player offence does not mean that offshore gambling is protected. A person who uses an unauthorised website has no recourse to a Beninese authority in a dispute and no guarantee of fair games or payment of winnings. Games of chance offered by the LNB are restricted to people aged 18 and over (LNB website). Because the private authorisations are not published in a consolidated form, players cannot readily check whether a given website is authorised in Benin.
Taxation
Players’ winnings
Since 27 July 2020, the LNB has withheld 15% of winnings before paying them out. The LNB circular, reported by La Nouvelle Tribune (21 July 2020), applied a “special final contribution on winnings paid to winners of games of chance”. The report links this contribution to the finance law in force since 2017 and to Article 194 (new) of the General Tax Code then in force. It describes the withholding as libératoire, a term for a final withholding that discharges the tax due on the income concerned. Benin adopted a new General Tax Code in December 2021. Whether the 15% rate and its scope are unchanged under that code could not be confirmed from the official text, and players should check current practice with the operator or the tax administration.
Operators
The Finance Law for 2025, Law No. 2024-34 of 12 December 2024, reduced the tax rate applying to land-based casinos from 25% to 15%. Under its Article 32, online games are now taxed on gross gaming revenue (produit brut des jeux), defined as stakes less the winnings or bonuses paid to players (Benin Web TV, 20 December 2024). The report gives no separate rate for online games, and the full text of the finance law could not be retrieved from the official portal, so the rate is not stated here. Private operators also owe fees to the public operator under Article 4 of the 2004 law, and the LNB pays part of its earnings to the Treasury. The LNB reported that its tax charge more than doubled in 2025 (Focus Gaming News).
Consumer protection and responsible gambling
Benin has no statutory responsible-gambling regime, no national self-exclusion register and no national gambling helpline that could be identified. The March 2023 Council of Ministers decision named the protection of vulnerable people at risk of addiction, the protection of minors and the promotion of responsible gaming as aims of the planned reform (La Nouvelle Tribune).
The most detailed rules come from the LNB itself. On 29 September 2026 it published a 20-page Responsible Gaming Policy dated 23 September 2026 (Focus Gaming News, 7 October 2026). Its main elements are:
- assessment of the risks of each new game before launch, covering format, pace of play, accessibility, stakes, how winnings work and the risks of different channels, with mitigation measures defined before the product reaches the market;
- age verification and other measures to prevent play by minors, and keeping commercial messages away from minors;
- player limits and self-exclusion “where regulations and technical systems allow”;
- advertising that must not mislead or suggest that gambling can solve financial problems or guarantee financial success; and
- staff training, measures in distribution contracts and procedures, complaint recording, periodic audits and review of the policy at least every two years by a Responsible Gaming Committee.
These are commitments by one operator. They do not bind private operators, and the policy does not name a helpline. People affected by gambling harm can find general guidance in our responsible gambling guide.
Recent and upcoming developments
- Reform programme (2023). The Council of Ministers announced an update of gambling legislation and a control platform in March 2023, and adopted a decree on the conditions for carrying on gambling activities in July 2023. No new gambling statute replacing the 2004 law had been reported by October 2026.
- LNB privatisation (2024). Up to 45% of the LNB was sold to the public in October 2024, and the shares were listed on the BRVM on 13 December 2024.
- Finance Law 2025. The casino tax rate fell from 25% to 15%, and online games moved to a gross-gaming-revenue tax base from 2025.
- Illegal competition (2025–2026). The LNB attributed a 4% fall in 2025 revenue and lower profits partly to unlicensed betting sites and slot machines (Focus Gaming News).
- Sector monitoring (2026). The CSJ awarded a technology monitoring contract to Sharp Vision in June 2026. In August 2026 the LNB tendered a six-month audit of its gaming platforms and of its connections with private sports-betting operators, including penetration testing and random-number-generator checks (Focus Gaming News).
Casino listings for players in Benin
The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is authorised in Benin. Lawful gambling in Benin is limited to the LNB and to private operators authorised by decree of the Council of Ministers, and no public register of authorised online operators exists. The listings must not be read as an indication that a site is lawful in Benin. Players should check an operator’s status with the authorities before playing.
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Sources and further reading
- Secretariat-General of the Government of Benin, Loi n° 2002-28 du 29 mars 2004 portant réglementation des jeux de hasard, d’argent et de paris en République du Bénin (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Secretariat-General of the Government of Benin, Décret n° 2011-268 du 02 avril 2011 portant approbation des statuts de la Loterie Nationale du Bénin (accessed 13 October 2026).
- Government of Benin, Devenez actionnaire de la Loterie Nationale du Bénin (3 October 2024).
- Government of Benin, Clôture de l’offre publique de vente des actions de la Loterie Nationale du Bénin détenues par l’État (2024).
- African Markets, BRVM : la première cotation de la Loterie Nationale du Bénin fixée au 13 décembre 2024 (5 December 2024).
- La Nouvelle Tribune, Jeux de hasard au Bénin : une plateforme de contrôle mise en place par le gouvernement (15 March 2023).
- Benin Web TV, Bénin : les grandes décisions du Conseil des ministres du 12 juillet 2023 (12 July 2023).
- La Nouvelle Tribune, Conseil des ministres : adoption de décret portant conditions d’exercice des activités de jeux de hasard (12 July 2023).
- Sika Finance, La Loterie Nationale du Bénin, leader d’un secteur des jeux en pleine expansion (26 February 2025).
- La Nouvelle Tribune, Bénin : la LNB prélève dès lundi une taxe sur les gains emportés par ses gagnants (21 July 2020).
- Benin Web TV, Bénin – Loi de finances 2025 : réduction de taxe sur les boissons alcoolisées, le casino et le tabac (20 December 2024).
- Daba Finance via AllAfrica, Bénin : les joueurs illégaux battent la loterie nationale du pays à son propre jeu (8 May 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, Benin lottery operator attributes 2025 profit decline to illegal gambling surge (May 2026).
- AllAfrica / Le Journal de l’Economie Sénégalaise, La Loterie Nationale du Bénin annonce un repli de 46% de son résultat net au premier trimestre 2026 (25 June 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, Benin’s National Lottery issues gaming platform audit tender (19 August 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, Benin National Lottery expands mobile betting through USSD (3 September 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, Benin lottery adopts new responsible gambling policy with pre-launch risk controls (7 October 2026).
- Focus Gaming News, Benin’s Casino Partouche Cotonou triples GGR in Q3 (10 September 2026).
- GGB Magazine, Groupe Partouche opens Benin casino (29 January 2025).
- Gaming Intelligence, Benin aims to better regulate gambling market (17 March 2023).
- Loterie Nationale du Bénin S.A., Official website (accessed 13 October 2026).
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