Sports betting in Uganda has become one of the most profitable ventures one can Invest in with high returns for a low stake. Betway,Betpawa,Fortebet among others are offering their services across continent. Betting services crossed over to Uganda a few years ago and their profitability rate plus impact on society has sparked another chapter that could see all these companies disappear from Uganda.
On the Internet, sports betting websites are some of the most visited in Uganda with the ever changing statistics favoring them in each and every dimension. As a matter of fact, soccer statistics websites also have more visits from Uganda more than what blocked pornography websites could garner in a year.
Well, government announced their plans to revoke and block any license renewals for all sports betting companies in Uganda. Given the fact that a user only stakes less and garner abnormal profits from a successful list of selected matches. Gov’t believes that this has killed the sense of innovation as many youth who would have joined the startup sphere would only opt to earn through the get rich quick scheme.
Although the Minister of finance Mr David Bahati declined to mention when sports betting companies will need to renew their licenses with the Gaming and Lotteries Board. The fate of both online and local based firms will perish and bid farewell to the profitable Ugandan dominance. To Spice things up, president Museveni confirmed the closure of betting companies in a tweet during the economic summit where he also beefed up ties with the MTN group CEO.
It is for this reason that we are banning registration of new fully-owned foreign betting companies while the old ones will not have their licences renewed. All they do is accumulate money from Ugandans then ship it out of the country.
— Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) January 24, 2019
On the contrary, online betting sites will still exist even without any licenses required in Uganda, So we are not sure whether a ban from UCC will be implemented to block these as well or only local companies will be sanctioned to an exit door from Uganda. Henceforth, the same way mobile money tax was introduced to spice up the tax revenues, we smell another similar tax once the these high revenue sports bet companies crop Uganda off the coverage map.
