Tanzania's Minister of Finance, Khamis Mussa Omar, introduced a new bill at the beginning of this month during the announcement of the 2026/27 fiscal year budget: a 5% consumption tax on all betting amounts for gambling activities. The coverage is clearly defined—offline and online sports betting, offline and online casinos, slot machine halls, and virtual games, none are missed. The new tax is expected to increase the government's fiscal revenue by **74.5 billion Tanzanian shillings (approximately 28.4 million US dollars), of which 10%** will be allocated to the Tanzanian Gaming Board, nominally for "improving the efficiency of gambling activity regulation and managing the consequences of gambling addiction." Omar also added a thought-provoking footnote in his budget speech: gambling is causing some youths to "gamble instead of work," eroding Tanzania's workforce.
H2 predicts that by 2031, the revenue will break 1 billion US dollars, with the black market only accounting for 4.5%
The underlying data of Tanzania's gambling market is not bad. According to the latest statistics from H2 Gambling Capital, the national gross gambling revenue in 2025 was 463.3 million US dollars, and it is expected to exceed 1 billion US dollars by 2031—with online channels contributing about 918.9 million US dollars, making up the absolute majority. It is also noteworthy that the illegal gambling ratio in Tanzania is only 4.5%, which is extremely low in Africa. This means that the tax base is relatively solid—most gambling activities are already within the regulatory scope, and the probability of the new tax being circumvented is much lower than in other African markets with rampant black markets.
Harsher neighbors: Uganda cuts 30% across the board, Kenya charges 5% on both deposits and withdrawals
If we look further to East Africa and the broader region, Tanzania's 5% is not the most aggressive. PASA's official website has previously analyzed the tax battles in multiple African countries—Uganda earlier this year directly introduced a 30% unified tax on gambling and gaming, plus a 15% tax on net profits; Kenya has been charging 5% on both withdrawals and deposits from betting wallets since last year; Lagos State in Nigeria also began taxing players' profits at 5% withholding tax in February this year. Ed Birkin of H2 repeatedly emphasized the core logic in the African topic here as well: taxing based on betting amounts is a regressive squeeze for licensed operators with gross margins of only around 30%—but with Tanzania's low black market share and top-ranking enforcement capabilities in Africa, whether this 5% tax burden can be absorbed by the market without pushing players to offshore platforms remains a test case worth continuous tracking.
————
This article is from "PASA-Global iGaming Leaders," a gambling industry news channel:https://t.me/pasa_news
Original in-depth gambling channel:https://t.me/gamblingdeep
Free data reports: @pasa_research
PASA Matrix: @pasa002_bot
PASA official website: https://www.pasa.news
