Review: iGaming Future on why Africa is 54 markets, not one — and what real cooperation would look like

In this weekend special, iGaming Future correspondent Tooni Wale takes a sober look at Africa’s fragmented gambling landscape, built around interviews with African iGaming Alliance CEO Peter Emolemo Kesitilwe and GamblePause Initiative Africa founder Ladipo Abiose Akolade. The piece opens with the continent’s familiar promise — roughly US$23 billion in 2025 GGR — but quickly pivots to the less comfortable reality that an estimated 77 percent of that activity runs through unregulated operators. That gap frames the whole report: the story of Africa’s gambling markets is as much about consumer choice and regulatory design as it is about enforcement.

The report’s most useful contribution is its sharp distinction between diversity and fragmentation. Kesitilwe’s argument that 54 separate licensing regimes, technical standards and tax structures are not inherently a problem — but that poor interoperability and regulatory unpredictability are — gives operators a more actionable framework than the usual calls for a single continental watchdog. The piece also highlights an uncomfortable dynamic that will resonate with anyone chasing growth in the region: when a market like Kenya starts “tweaking” rules, the main beneficiary is not a neighbouring regulated market but the offshore illegal operator. That is a reminder that channelisation is won as much through stability as through enforcement.

Equally valuable is the inclusion of a player-protection voice. Akolade’s push for shared responsible-gambling standards through ECOWAS or the AU, grounded in his own experience with addiction, broadens the conversation beyond market access. It also underscores that fragmentation has human consequences: where a player lives can determine whether any support exists at all. The piece wisely stops short of endorsing harmonisation, instead landing on cooperation through existing regional bodies — a realistic, if slow, path worth watching.

For operators, investors and regulators, the report is a useful counterweight to the “next big growth story” narrative. It makes clear that Africa’s opportunity is real, but that scaling across it means designing for 54 different rulebooks, not one. For the full interviews and the underlying Gaming Compliance International data, readers should go directly to the original piece at iGaming Future.