Gambling in The Gambia: Laws, Tax and Online Casinos

Published by Casino News Daily editorial teamReviewed byFilip RadulovicOur editorial approach

The Gambia permits lotteries, sports betting and casinos, but it does so without a single modern gambling statute or a dedicated gambling regulator. Casinos are licensed as tourism premises by the Gambia Tourism Board under the Gambia Tourism Board Act 2011, betting and lottery winnings are taxed by the Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA), and street-level gaming businesses have reportedly operated under local council registration and police permits. The legal position has also been unstable: in March 2015 the government of President Yahya Jammeh banned all forms of gambling by executive announcement, and in 2017 the new government of President Adama Barrow lifted the ban by executive order. Online gambling is not addressed by any statute we could identify. This guide sets out what can be verified from Gambian primary sources and the national press, and flags clearly what could not be verified.

Key points

There is no consolidated gambling act and no dedicated gaming commission. Casinos must be licensed by the Gambia Tourism Board under the Gambia Tourism Board Act 2011 (Act No. 6 of 2011).
All gambling, including lotteries, casinos and sports betting, was banned from 2 March 2015 by order of the Jammeh government. President Barrow reopened the market by executive order in 2017.
The tax on winnings from betting, gaming and lotteries has risen sharply: from 10% to 30% in 2024, and to 50% from 1 January 2026, with operators required to withhold it and remit it to the GRA.
No statutory licensing regime for online casinos or online betting could be identified, and no website blocking or payment blocking scheme is in place according to the sources reviewed.
Youth participation in sports betting and street gambling is a recurring public and parliamentary concern; members of the National Assembly raised it in an adjournment debate in 2025.

Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.

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Historical development

The Gambia is a small West African state whose population is overwhelmingly Muslim, with a Christian minority; figures derived from the CIA World Factbook put Muslims at about 96% of the population (religion in The Gambia overview). Both faiths are generally regarded as forbidding gambling, and religious and moral arguments have been prominent in Gambian debate on the subject. At the same time, gambling was an established commercial activity: by 2015 casinos, gaming halls and sports betting shops were operating in the tourist resorts and in the capital, Banjul, alongside a National Lottery (GGB Magazine, 2015).

The 2015 ban

On 2 March 2015 the Office of the President announced that the government had “banned lotteries, casinos and all forms of gambling in the Gambia” with immediate effect. The statement, reported by The Point, said the measure was intended “to safeguard and promote the public welfare of our citizens”. It argued that Gambian society was built on values such as thrift and integrity rather than “greed and avarice”, and it cited children as young as seven spending their lunch money on betting tickets, and households left without food because income had been gambled away. According to a report carried by the Daily Monitor, operators were told to stop immediately or face “dire consequences”, and private betting between individuals was also ordered to stop.

The ban was not, on the available evidence, based on any statute. Contemporary reports cite no Act or regulation, and The Point’s later coverage describes it only as a “ban order” issued through executive directives (The Point, 2017). An unnamed Banjul lawyer quoted at the time argued that religion was not a lawful basis for closing licensed businesses, and a former foreign minister predicted serious harm to the hospitality sector (GGB Magazine, 2015). Reports also state that Jammeh directed the police and the army to act against people offering or taking part in gambling (GGB Magazine, 2017).

Reopening in 2017

Adama Barrow took office in January 2017 after winning the December 2016 presidential election. In 2017 he issued an executive order ending the ban on lotteries, casino gambling and sports betting (SBC News, 30 May 2017). The number and exact date of the order were not published in the sources we found. Gambian newspapers were already reporting the reopening of lottery and betting businesses by April and May 2017: one lottery and betting company told The Point that it had hired almost 150 young people within weeks of the ban being lifted, and that it had paid D3.6 million to jackpot winners in the first 59 days after resuming operations (The Point, April 2017; The Point, May 2017).

Since then, sports betting in particular has grown. In 2021 The Point reported that one betting company alone had more than 150 sub-agents, and an unnamed source said pupils as young as 13 were buying tickets at kiosks during school hours (The Point, 2021). A 2022 report described betting outlets as visible “on almost every street” in the Greater Banjul Area (The Point, 2022).

Legal framework

Checking gambling legislation and licensing

The Gambia’s gambling law is fragmented. We were unable to locate, on the National Assembly website or in other accessible official sources, a current Gambian statute that comprehensively regulates lotteries, betting or gaming, or that establishes a gaming board or gambling commission. The official consolidated legislation portal for The Gambia could not be searched for this review, so the existence of older colonial-era lottery or gaming legislation in the revised Laws of The Gambia could not be confirmed or excluded. Readers should treat the description below as covering the instruments that could be verified, not as an exhaustive list.

The Gambia Tourism Board Act 2011

The most clearly identifiable legal basis for regulating casinos is the Gambia Tourism Board Act 2011 (Act No. 6 of 2011), assented to on 8 August 2011 and published in the Gazette on 11 August 2011. It replaced the earlier Gambia Tourism Authority Act. The Act defines a casino as “any premises, including gaming houses” to which the public has access “for the purpose of playing a prescribed game of chance”. Its main provisions on casinos are:

Licensing function: section 4(1)(h) requires the Board to license and maintain registers of hotels, night clubs, casinos, tourist guides and other tourist enterprises.
Licence requirement: section 32(1) prohibits operating a hotel, night club, casino or restaurant except under a licence from the Board, although section 32(2) allows the Board to exempt premises or classes of premises by published notice.
Applications and conditions: applications for grant or renewal follow a prescribed form, and the Board may attach conditions. The Act also provides for refusal, suspension and revocation, with an appeal to the Minister within 28 days.
Levies: section 19 allows the Board, with ministerial approval and by Gazette notice, to impose levies on tourist establishments, which can cover services in casinos.
Offences: contravening the Act is an offence punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding D50,000.

The Act is a tourism licensing law rather than a gambling law. It contains no provisions on a minimum gambling age, on game rules or fairness, on anti-money-laundering duties, or on lotteries and betting. It refers to a “prescribed” game of chance, but we did not find regulations prescribing the games. The table of contents and the body of the published text also number some sections differently; the offence provision appears as section 48 in the body.

Both the 2015 ban and its 2017 reversal were executive acts; neither order was available in an official text for this review. The scope of lawful gambling has therefore depended heavily on executive policy rather than on a stable statutory framework.

Tax law

Gambling winnings are taxed through measures announced in the annual budget speech and administered by the Gambia Revenue Authority, which lists a monthly “Pool & Betting Tax” return among its filing obligations. The statutory provision under which the tax is levied was not identified in the sources we could access (see Taxation below).

Regulator and licensing model

The Gambia does not operate a recognisable gambling licensing system of the kind found in neighbouring Ghana or Nigeria, where a dedicated commission issues licences under a gaming statute. Instead, several public bodies touch on gambling, each for its own purposes:

Gambia Tourism Board (GTB) licenses casinos as tourism premises under the 2011 Act. In September 2023 the Board warned hotels, night clubs, casinos and other establishments to regularise their licences or face prosecution, citing sections 32 and 33 of the Act and the D50,000 fine (The Point, 2023). In 2026 the Board’s legal and compliance director spoke publicly on responsible gaming, and trade press described an online operator’s launch as taking place under GTB oversight (The Point, April 2026; Focus Gaming News, April 2026).
Gambia Revenue Authority (GRA) collects tax on winnings and receives monthly pool and betting tax returns. It is a tax authority, not a gambling regulator, and it does not publish a register of licensed gambling operators.
Local councils and the police: in a 2025 National Assembly debate, a member reported that street gambling operators claimed to be registered with the local council and to hold permits from the Inspector General of Police, and that a deputy Inspector General had described these permits as part of the registration process (The Point, April 2025). A betting company owner told The Point in 2017 that his business paid taxes to the GRA and to the Kanifing Municipal Council (The Point, 2017).

No official list or register of licensed lottery, betting or casino operators was found. The number of casinos and betting operators currently licensed is therefore not published in any source we could verify. The authority that licenses lottery and sports betting businesses, as distinct from casinos, could not be confirmed.

Online gambling

Online casino games on mobile devices

No Gambian statute that we could identify defines online or remote gambling, creates a licence for it, or prohibits it. The 2011 Tourism Board Act is framed around physical premises, and the 2015 ban and 2017 executive order addressed lotteries, casinos and betting in general terms without distinguishing online channels. Online gambling therefore sits in a legal grey zone: it is neither expressly authorised by a licensing statute nor expressly prohibited.

In practice, online and mobile gambling is available. In April 2026 The Point reported the launch of a mobile-first online casino in The Gambia by a company operating in several African markets; a company representative said it had been licensed by the Gambian government, but the article gave no licence number, issuing body, licence type or legal basis (The Point, April 2026). Because no licensing statute for online gambling has been identified and no public register exists, claims by operators that they are licensed in The Gambia cannot be checked against an official source.

Many operators that accept players from The Gambia hold licences from other jurisdictions. A foreign licence does not, in itself, confer any status under Gambian law, and disputes with an offshore operator are unlikely to be resolvable through any Gambian body.

Enforcement and advertising

We found no evidence of website blocking by internet service providers, no blocklist of unlicensed operators, and no payment blocking directed at gambling transactions. Nor did we find gambling-specific advertising rules. Enforcement activity reported in the press concerns land-based premises: the GTB’s licensing drive against unlicensed tourism businesses in 2023, and, according to a member of the National Assembly in 2025, residents in Basse asking the police to remove street gambling operations (The Point, April 2025).

Position of players

No provision making it an offence for an adult to place bets or play casino games, whether in person with a licensed business or online with an offshore operator, was identified in the sources reviewed, and we found no record of players being prosecuted for doing so since 2017. During the 2015 to 2017 ban the position was different: according to trade press reports, President Jammeh ordered the police and the army to act against civilians who took part in gambling as well as against operators (GGB Magazine, 2017). We found no published account of individual prosecutions under that directive.

No statutory minimum gambling age was identified. Operators have stated their own policies: a lottery company said in 2017 that it would not allow players under 18 (The Point, April 2017), and a betting company owner said his business excluded anyone under 18 or in school uniform (The Point, May 2017).

Players who use online services have little local protection. There is no regulator that handles player complaints, no statutory requirement for operators to segregate player funds, and, as noted above, no official register against which an operator’s claimed licence can be checked. The 50% tax on winnings, which applies to winnings from legal gambling, is withheld by operators that comply with GRA requirements; the tax position of winnings from offshore sites was not addressed in the sources we found.

Taxation

The main gambling tax is a tax on winnings, collected by operators and paid to the GRA. Its rate has increased in successive budgets:

Effective	Rate on winnings	Source
Before 2024	10%	FactCheck Gambia, 2024
1 January 2024	30%	2024 Budget Speech, as reported by FactCheck Gambia
By December 2025	40%	2026 Budget Speech, as reported by Gambiana
1 January 2026	50%	2026 Budget Speech, as reported by Gambiana; effective date per SiGMA News

According to FactCheck Gambia, the 2024 Budget Speech, read by Finance Minister Seedy Keita in December 2023, announced that the GRA would “increase the pool and betting tax on the winnings on betting, gaming, lottery” from 10% to 30% from 1 January 2024 (FactCheck Gambia, 16 August 2024). The Gambian outlet Gambiana reported that, presenting the 2026 budget, Finance Minister Keita proposed to “increase the tax on winnings from betting, gaming, lotteries and other gambling activities from 40% to 50%” (Gambiana, 9 December 2025); trade press quoted the same statement (SiGMA News, 27 January 2026). When the rate rose from 30% to 40% could not be traced to a primary document. The 2026 Budget Speech was delivered on 5 December 2025 and the Appropriation Bill was passed by the National Assembly in December 2025 (The Point, 10 December 2025).

SiGMA News, a trade publication, reports that the 50% rate took effect on 1 January 2026 and applies to winnings from all legal gambling, including sports betting, casinos, lotteries and gaming machines; that operators must withhold the tax and remit it to the GRA; and that the first major compliance deadline was 15 February. The effective date could not be confirmed in a Gambian official source. The GRA’s own guidance lists the Pool & Betting Tax Monthly Schedule as due 15 days after the end of each month (GRA, Domestic Taxes FAQs), and a Pool Betting Tax Return form is published on its downloads page. Whether the tax is charged on gross winnings or on net winnings (winnings less the stake) was not stated in the primary sources we could access.

Casinos are additionally liable for Tourism Board licence fees and any levies set under the 2011 Act, as well as general business taxes. Specific gross gaming revenue taxes on operators, comparable to those in many licensing jurisdictions, were not identified.

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

The Gambia has no national self-exclusion register, no statutory responsible gambling code and, as far as we could establish, no dedicated gambling helpline or treatment service. Protection rests largely on operators’ own policies, such as age limits, and on general law.

Public concern about gambling harm is nevertheless longstanding. A 2022 report in The Point included a young man who gambled away money his brother had asked him to bank, and an interviewee warning that betting addiction can lead to theft; commentators called on the government to create a “control mechanism” to keep school-going children away from sports betting (The Point, 2022). In the National Assembly in April 2025, members for Serekunda and Basse described street gambling as unregulated and harmful, one calling it “daylight robbery”, and urged stronger regulation, enforcement and public awareness campaigns (The Point, April 2025). The government’s stated rationale for the steep 2024 to 2026 increases in the tax on winnings was not reported in the sources we found, and we could not establish whether the increases were intended partly as a deterrent.

People in The Gambia who are concerned about their own or someone else’s gambling may seek help through general health and counselling services. General guidance on recognising and managing gambling problems is available in our responsible gambling guide.

Recent and upcoming developments

Tax on winnings raised to 30% (2024). Announced in the 2024 Budget Speech and effective 1 January 2024.
Street gambling debated in the National Assembly (April 2025). Members raised concerns about unregulated street gambling, permits issued through police and councils, and the involvement of non-Gambian operators.
Tax on winnings raised to 50% (2026). Announced in the 2026 Budget Speech of 5 December 2025 and, according to trade press, effective 1 January 2026, with monthly withholding returns to the GRA.
Online operators entering the market (2026). At least one Africa-focused online operator launched a mobile casino service in April 2026, stating that it was licensed in The Gambia and engaging with the Gambia Tourism Board on responsible gaming.
No gambling bill identified. We found no published bill for a gaming act or a gaming regulatory authority as of 13 October 2026. SiGMA News reported in January 2026 that the government plans a digital monitoring and revenue assurance platform for gambling operators, but no official document describing it was found.

Casino listings for players in The Gambia

The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is licensed or authorised in The Gambia: no Gambian licensing regime for online casinos and no official register of licensed operators could be identified, and a licence from another country gives no status under Gambian law. Questions about whether a casino holds a licence can be directed to the Gambia Tourism Board. The listings must not be read as an indication that any particular operator is authorised in The Gambia.

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Key points

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Historical development

The 2015 ban

Reopening in 2017

Legal framework

The Gambia Tourism Board Act 2011

Tax law

Regulator and licensing model

Online gambling

Enforcement and advertising

Position of players

Taxation

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Recent and upcoming developments

Casino listings for players in The Gambia

Related country guides

Sources and further reading

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