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The Ministry of Trade and Industry has announced that it is working on a policy that could regulate betting activities in Rwanda, including online betting.

The development follows the growing prevalence of online betting and betting in general in the country, which needs proper regulation and inspection to ensure its safety according to officials.

Samuel Kamugisha, the Director General of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development at the Ministry of Trade and Industry told The New Times that the policy could be available by the end of this year.

While this newspaper has learnt that many betting companies have applied for license to also start online betting, Kamugisha said that there is only one online betting company that was given two-year exclusive license.

This license, he said, is due to expire in July this year.

"Once the exclusive license expires, we will sit, do evaluation and set a policy for this growing industry. The policy will inform if we can open for all betting companies to operate online betting or not. We still need to protect this industry by establishing laws and guidelines that govern it,” he said.

Meanwhile, in order to ensure safety of online betting, he said the ministry is working with different institutions such as RURA, police and others to help monitor in case anything goes wrong.

"All people under 18 years are not allowed to play such games. We also work with health ministry and also oblige the online companies to periodically assess addiction among their clients,” he said.

Overlapping mandates

He explained that the policy on betting in general is needed because currently, the ministry is facing ‘a big challenge as it is working as ‘policy maker’ at the same time as ‘regulator’.

"The big challenge we have today is that we have not yet established a policy. We need policy framework for regulation in the betting sector because the ministry is working as at policy maker and at the same time as regulator. This is a very big challenge. If things go as planned, we hope that by the end of this year, we will have availed the policy,” he said.

He said that the policy will establish a number of guidelines to regulate the industry.

"For example, it will define the number of companies that should be licensed. It will tell us if we should take betting as other normal businesses in which everyone can venture.”

He added that the policy will also define who gives the guidelines, who regulates, who monitors and inspects what the betting companies do on daily basis.

"It has to tell us who should play these games and the standards of gaming shops. We need to also discern which agency that should regulate and inspect betting. The policy is needed and the law be probably reviewed after,” he said.

So far, he said, the betting sector is governed by 2011 law and 2013 ministerial guidelines setting up procedures on how to get licensed.

More companies vie for online betting

According to officials from Fortebet Rwanda, they are currently not allowed to do online betting but have applied for license in the ministry of trade and industry but have not yet received the feedback.

So far only Gorilla Games Rwanda owned by Cheza Rwanda Games Limited has an exclusive license to offer online betting services.

Edgar Mwebaze, the marketing manager of the company told The New Times that the number of people doing online betting has been increasing on daily basis in the last two years.

He however refused to divulge the number of people using his company’s platform to place bets.

With the numbers growing, he said they have put in place measures to ensure safety and control over addiction and overindulgence.

"In terms of responsible gaming, only people with 18 years old and above can register with their identification cards,” he said.

"We have set up a system to monitor betting activities of any player and when we sense irregular activity like someone losing too much and they continue to pay too much, we try to call, try to understand what problem it is, advise them to reduce on betting. There a choice to exclude them for a certain period and suspend their accounts,” he added.

Without divulging the number, he noted that every week they engage clients found to have addiction and overindulgence.

Betting started in 2004 in Rwanda under the name of sports and cultural lottery.

The trade ministry says there are different categories of gaming namely sport betting, gambling machines facilities or slot machines , casino game, sports book or race, national lottery that is yet to start despite having gotten provisional license as well as online betting.

So far, there are 24 companies operating in different categories of gaming.

The companies had created over 2,000 jobs before covid-19 pandemic, according to statistics from the Ministry of Trade and Industry.