Enugu gaming regulator makes digital enforcement case at EGC 2026

Africa’s iGaming sector has moved rapidly toward digital delivery, and regulators are now trying to close the gap left by black and grey market operators. According to H2 Gambling Capital’s Africa Optimum Market Structure report, only about 15 African countries currently have online-specific gambling regulation in place, with widely differing approaches and an unusually strong focus on tax revenue. That mix, the report argues, points to the need for better coordination across the industry to raise channelisation rates.

Speaking at the Enugu Gaming Conference 2026, Prince Arinze Arum, Chief Executive Officer of the Enugu State Gaming and Lotto Commission, said enforcement capability remains the biggest obstacle to progress for many African jurisdictions. He described the challenge as enormous, but highlighted a newly deployed real-time online verification portal as a practical way for licensing bodies to set a new standard.

The portal allows anyone to check a licensed operator’s record, including licence category, validity and approved domains, and to identify operators that have been banned. Arum presented it as evidence of a growing commitment to transparency and technology-driven regulation in Nigeria’s Enugu State.

Arum said the core difficulty for regulators is that existing frameworks were built for physical gambling environments. "The biggest oversight challenge has been trying to regulate a digital industry with frameworks that were largely designed for a physical gaming environment," Arum said. He argued that technology has outpaced regulation, enabling illegal and unlicensed operators to exploit cross-border gaps, and that the answer lies in closer collaboration among African regulators, technology-based monitoring systems, intelligence sharing and more harmonised standards. "No single regulator can effectively oversee a borderless digital gaming ecosystem on its own," he added.

Despite those hurdles, Arum said he is optimistic about Africa’s trajectory. "Africa is making steady and measurable progress, although at different speeds across jurisdictions," he said, pointing to the recent completion of a public verification infrastructure at the Enugu commission as one example. He predicted that as more regulators adopt digital tools, data sharing and risk-based supervision, the continent can move much closer to international best practices within the next few years.

In recent months, the Enugu State commission has also introduced significant reforms and stepped up compliance enforcement across the sector.