Kenya GRA considers dedicated prediction-market licence for 2026/27 cycle

Reports citing Peter Karimi indicate that Kenya's regulator, the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA), is weighing a licence category built specifically for prediction-market operators, with the matter tied to the 2026/27 licensing cycle. No application requirements or launch timetable have been issued by the regulator so far.

According to Karimi, the regulator treats prediction markets as gambling, since people put money at stake on results that are still to come. The potential category has reportedly drawn interest from a number of firms that have already contacted the regulator.

The regulator has legal backing for such a step. Kenya's Gambling Control Act 2025 creates licence categories for online bookmakers, lotteries and casinos and allows additional licence types to be introduced through future regulations, which the GRA could use to establish a prediction-market licence without a new law.

Rules already in force for online gambling might serve as a base for a future framework. Firms must currently satisfy conditions covering payments, advertising, age verification and regulators' access to transaction data, and these could be reworked should prediction markets be recognised as a regulated product category.

The regulator accepts that prediction markets raise difficulties that are not always seen in traditional betting. One worry is cross-border platforms, especially where a single jurisdiction is used to serve users in several countries. Digital assets are a further matter being examined, since certain platforms use cryptocurrency for deposits and withdrawals.

Karimi also pointed to the difficulty of controlling promotion in a connected market. "We have to prepare for the fact that marketing knows no bounds," he said.

Kenya is not the only African country examining this area; elsewhere on the continent, governments are also considering where prediction markets belong within gambling legislation. Liberia offers the most developed example, having created a framework for the sector as one element of a larger reform of its gambling rules. Operators there have two routes in: holding a dedicated licence, or working through a partnership that the National Lottery Authority has approved. A fee of $80,000 comes with the licence, and paid-up capital of no less than $500,000 must be maintained.

Under Liberia's rules, contracts tied to a named person's death, to criminal activity or to Liberian elections are banned. Kenya has not settled on its approach and has not published licence conditions, yet 5050 Markets, EvenMarket and Spreadhit keep providing prediction-market services there.