Gambling in Lesotho: Casino Law, Betting and Online Play

Published by Casino News Daily editorial teamReviewed byFilip RadulovicOur editorial approach

Lesotho, a small landlocked kingdom entirely surrounded by South Africa, has a long-standing but thinly documented gambling framework. Land-based casinos have been licensed since the Casino Order of 1989 by a statutory Casino Board, which works alongside the ministry responsible for tourism. Retail and mobile sports betting has grown quickly in the 2020s, and online betting and casino-style games are widely marketed to Basotho through local companies and mobile money. However, no statute dealing specifically with online gambling could be identified, and no regulator publishes a register of licensed operators. This guide sets out what can be verified from official and reputable sources, and states plainly where the public record is incomplete.

Key points

Casinos are governed by the Casino Order 1989 and the Casino Regulations 1990, and are licensed and supervised by the Casino Board (ESAAMLG mutual evaluation, 2023).
In 2023 Lesotho had four licensed casinos, three of them operating, all subsidiaries of foreign casino groups.
No legislation or licence category for online gambling could be verified; online betting and casino-style products are nonetheless offered by locally based companies, often funded through mobile money.
The Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL) collected M16.40 million in gaming levy in the 2024/25 fiscal year, more than double its M7.13 million target (Lesotho Times, April 2025).
No national self-exclusion scheme or dedicated statutory problem gambling helpline could be identified; local media and civil society describe gambling harm among young people as a growing concern.

Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.

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Historical development

Modern regulated gambling in Lesotho dates from the late 1980s, when the Casino Order 1989 created a licensing regime for casinos and established the Casino Board as the licensing authority. Regulations made under the Order followed in 1990. The Casino Order is still the instrument relied on by the Board, by operators and by the courts.

For most of the period since 1989, casino gaming has been concentrated in Maseru, the capital, around hotel properties that were historically part of the Sun group and are now operated under the Avani brand. The operator describes its Hilton Road property as “Maseru’s only casino” (Avani Lesotho Hotel & Casino). That description refers to full casino operations at the hotel; the anti-money laundering assessment discussed below counts more casino licences nationally, including smaller operations.

Competition in the sector became the subject of litigation in 2016. Avani Lesotho (Pty) Ltd applied to the High Court to set aside the Casino Board’s decision to grant two casino licences to Goldrush Group and Goldrush Lesotho, which planned a slot machine operation at Maseru Mall. Avani alleged that the licences breached section 10(1) of the Casino Order, which, as reported, requires the Board to be satisfied that an applicant owns, or holds an acceptable sub-lease of, the premises, and that the Casino Regulations 1990 had not been complied with. The Board’s chairperson, who was also the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism, replied that “the Board has absolute discretion whether to grant or refuse issuance of licences” (Lesotho Times, 19 August 2016; 27 August 2016). On or about 1 September 2016 the High Court ordered Goldrush to temporarily suspend the launch of its slot machine business until the dispute with Avani was finalised (Lesotho Times, 2 September 2016). The final outcome of the main application could not be verified from published sources.

Lotteries have a smaller and less documented place. Lesotho is known internationally for a randomised trial in which researchers, including a World Bank economist, offered lottery tickets as an incentive for participants who tested negative for two curable sexually transmitted infections. The trial reported a 21.4% reduction in HIV incidence in the lottery groups compared with the control group (Björkman Nyqvist, Corno, de Walque and Svensson, VoxDev). This was a research programme, not a commercial or national lottery.

Legal framework

Checking gambling legislation and licensing

The Casino Order 1989 and Casino Regulations 1990

The principal gambling instrument is the Casino Order 1989. The 2023 mutual evaluation of Lesotho by the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG), a regional body that assesses countries against the standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), lists the “Casino Order 1989” and the “Casino Regulations 1990” as the sectoral laws governing casinos (ESAAMLG, Mutual Evaluation Report, 2023, Table 1.2). Elsewhere the same report refers to the Board as “established under the Casino Act 1989”; the instrument is generally cited as an Order, which is how it was described in the 2016 High Court litigation.

The full current text of the Order could not be retrieved from an official portal for this review, so its detailed provisions are not summarised here. The verified elements are:

Licensing authority. The Casino Board grants and refuses casino licences and, according to its own submissions to the High Court in 2016, exercises a broad discretion in doing so.
Premises requirement. According to the 2016 court reports, section 10(1) requires the Board to be satisfied that the applicant owns, or holds an acceptable sub-lease of, the premises in which the casino will operate.
Licence term. A 2026 High Court claim by a consultancy against a Maseru casino operator sought payment for work on securing a “10-year casino authorisation”, a licence renewal and “legislation amendments” (Lesotho Times, 23 May 2026). The standard licence term under the Order, and the nature of those amendments, could not be verified.

Other legislation

Several secondary sources, including iGaming Today, state that lotteries and betting are governed by a “Lotteries and Betting Act of 1984”, and some refer to a “Gambling and Betting Control Board”. Neither the Act nor that board could be verified in any official source, legislative database, court judgment or government publication consulted for this review. Readers should therefore treat those references with caution. On the available evidence, the only gambling-specific instruments that can be confirmed are the Casino Order 1989 and the Casino Regulations 1990.

Casinos are also subject to anti-money laundering law. The ESAAMLG report lists the Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Act (MLPCA) and its regulations as applicable to casinos, and states that the Casino Board is “designated as a supervisory body under the ML Regulations of 2019” (ESAAMLG, para. 81). Businesses generally require a trading licence under the Business Licensing and Registration Act 2019. Leabua Molato of Gambling Awareness Lesotho, quoted by The Reporter in April 2025, argued that “a simple trading license is not enough” for gambling businesses. How betting operators are in fact licensed could not be verified.

Regulator and licensing model

Lesotho operates a licensing model for land-based casinos: casinos are lawful if they hold a licence from the competent authority, and the number of licences is not fixed by a published cap. The competent authority is the Casino Board.

The Board is closely tied to government. In 2016 its chairperson was the Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism (Lesotho Times, 2016). Government budget estimates for 2021/22 record “Casino Licences” as a revenue item of the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture, estimated at M78,000 for 2021/22, rising to M85,995 for 2023/24 (Government of Lesotho, Budget Estimates 2021/22). The Board does not appear to maintain a public website or a public register of licensees, and no licence fee schedule could be found.

According to the ESAAMLG, as at the 2023 assessment:

there were four casinos, “3 are operational while 1 was yet to start”, all subsidiaries of foreign-based casino groups (para. 91);
the Casino Board was “responsible for regulation and supervision of the casinos” (para. 81);
“except for the Casino Board, all DNFBP regulators do not understand the ML/TF risks in their sectors” (para. 19), DNFBPs being designated non-financial businesses and professions such as casinos, estate agents and lawyers; and
although casinos “are not adequately implementing AML/CFT obligations, the volume of activities is low”, so the sector was considered of low importance in the overall assessment (para. 91).

The ESAAMLG report does not discuss betting shops or lotteries as separate regulated sectors. Lesotho Tribune reported in September 2025 that it had contacted “all licensed sports betting companies” in the country, which indicates that bookmakers operate under some form of licence, but neither the issuing authority nor the legal basis for such licences was identified in that report or in any official source located for this review.

Online gambling and enforcement

Online casino games on mobile devices

No Lesotho statute or regulation that expressly licenses, prohibits or taxes online gambling could be identified. In particular:

no remote or interactive gambling licence category has been published;
no blocking regime, meaning directions to internet service providers or payment institutions to stop access to or payments to gambling sites, has been identified, and no blocklist is published by the Lesotho Communications Authority or any other body; and
no enforcement action against an online gambling operator could be found in court reports or news coverage.

In practice, online betting and casino-style games are widely available. Local reporting describes “betting shops and mobile apps” that “have multiplied, yet regulation remains toothless” (Lesotho Tribune, 7 September 2025). In May 2026 the Lesotho Times reported a large payout to a player in the “casino games category” of a Lesotho online betting company; the company stated that bets start from M0.08, that deposits start from M1.00, that only people aged 18 and over may take part, and that deposits are “slightly challenging because of our mobile money systems”. The Reporter cited an estimate that online gambling sites in Lesotho earn about M200,000 a day; the basis of that figure was not given and it should be read as indicative only.

Industry press has reported that online gambling in Lesotho remains unregulated and that specific online gambling legislation has yet to be passed (iGaming Today, November 2025). That report is consistent with the absence of any official material on the subject, but it is a secondary source and does not cite primary documents for its legal claims.

Because the legal basis on which locally based online operators are authorised is not public, it cannot be stated with confidence whether their online casino-style products fall within, or outside, any licence they hold. Foreign-based websites that accept players from Lesotho do so without any Lesotho licence.

Position of players

No provision making it an offence for an individual to gamble, either with a licensed land-based operator or with an online operator based abroad, could be identified in the sources available for this review. No prosecution or fine of a player for online gambling has been reported. This should not be read as a positive statement that such play is lawful: it reflects the absence of a verifiable online gambling law and of any recorded enforcement against players.

The practical consequence is that players have little formal protection. There is no published regulator complaints procedure for online gambling, no public register against which a player can check an operator, and no statutory guarantee that winnings will be paid. Disputes with an operator based outside Lesotho would in practice have to be pursued in that operator’s jurisdiction, if at all.

The minimum age commonly applied by operators is 18. Locally based betting companies state this restriction in public (Lesotho Times, May 2026), but the statutory source of the age limit for betting could not be verified.

Taxation

Gambling is taxed through a gaming levy, collected by the Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL), the national tax authority. The 2021/22 budget estimates list “Gaming Levy” under the Ministry of Finance at M3.0 million for 2021/22 (Budget Estimates 2021/22). For the 2024/25 fiscal year RSL reported that “the Gaming Levy had a target of M7.13 million, but actual remittances stood at M16.40 million”, exceeding the target by M9.27 million, or 130% (Lesotho Times, 8 April 2025, reporting figures released by the RSL Commissioner General). Total RSL collections for the same year were M9.74 billion, so the levy remains a very small share of public revenue.

The rate and base of the gaming levy, meaning whether it is charged on gross gaming revenue (GGR, the amount staked minus winnings paid out), on turnover or on another measure, could not be verified from an official source. Casino licence fees are a separate, much smaller revenue line under the tourism ministry, as noted above. No source was found indicating that players’ gambling winnings are taxed in Lesotho; individuals with significant winnings should seek advice from RSL.

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Formal responsible gambling infrastructure in Lesotho is limited. No national self-exclusion register, meaning a scheme by which a person can ask to be barred from gambling with all licensed operators, could be identified, and no statutory helpline dedicated to gambling harm was found. Responsible gambling obligations, if any, imposed on casinos by the Casino Regulations 1990 could not be verified.

Concern about gambling harm is nevertheless prominent in national media:

In April 2025 The Reporter quoted Leabua Molato of Gambling Awareness Lesotho, who described gambling as “entertainment, not a financial strategy” and called for awareness campaigns, treatment centres and stronger compliance mechanisms. The article also reported a claim that about 80% of young people were struggling with gambling-related issues, without identifying the source of that figure.
In September 2025 the Lesotho Tribune reported that every licensed sports betting company it approached “categorically refused to answer questions about what help they offer to gambling addicts”.
In March 2026 the state Lesotho News Agency reported accounts of low-income and unemployed people gambling to supplement income and falling into debt with money lenders, and noted calls for financial education, responsible gambling campaigns and counselling services.

Regional cooperation may support future standards. In May 2025 the Lesotho Casino Board signed a memorandum of understanding with the Botswana Gambling Authority covering knowledge-sharing on licensing and compliance, anti-money laundering and responsible gambling (iGaming Expert, May 2025). Readers in Lesotho who are concerned about their own gambling or that of someone close to them can find general guidance in our responsible gambling guide.

Recent and upcoming developments

AML/CFT evaluation (September 2023). The ESAAMLG adopted its mutual evaluation of Lesotho, which assessed casinos as low-volume and the Casino Board as the only DNFBP supervisor with a sound understanding of money laundering risk (FATF publication page). Lesotho remains subject to ESAAMLG follow-up; its status can be checked on the FATF country page.
Gaming levy growth (2024/25). RSL reported levy collections of M16.40 million against a target of M7.13 million, consistent with rapid growth of betting.
Botswana MoU (May 2025). The Casino Board and the Botswana Gambling Authority agreed to cooperate on licensing, compliance and player protection.
Casino licence renewal and amendments (2024–2026). Court papers reported in May 2026 refer to a 10-year casino authorisation, a licence renewal and “legislation amendments” pursued on behalf of a Maseru casino operator under an agreement of around August 2024. The content and status of any such amendments could not be verified.
Online gambling legislation. As at 13 October 2026, no online gambling bill could be found in published parliamentary or government material.

Casino listings for players in Lesotho

The listings below are generated automatically from our casino database. They do not show that an operator is licensed in Lesotho. Lesotho has no published licensing regime or public register for online casinos, and the Casino Board does not publish a list of licensees, so readers cannot confirm an operator’s status locally; the listings must not be read as an indication that any operator is authorised in Lesotho.

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Key points

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Historical development

Legal framework

The Casino Order 1989 and Casino Regulations 1990

Other legislation

Regulator and licensing model

Online gambling and enforcement

Position of players

Taxation

Consumer protection and responsible gambling

Recent and upcoming developments

Casino listings for players in Lesotho

Related country guides

Sources and further reading

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