Until it runs, no sports betting licence will be issued, and none has existed since the Service cancelled them all on 15 December 2025.
How the market was closed
On 4 December 2025, acting on information from regulatory and security bodies, the Service halted 22 companies. Eleven days later, on 15 December, it cancelled every sports betting licence in the country, citing rule breaches and fraud concerns. Every one of them was reminded that unsettled bets and customer balances remained payable.
Hulu Sport, one of the former licensees, sought to return and was blocked by a court. The Service has since issued public warnings about betting adverts run without a licence. By July 2026 it stated that not one sports betting company held a valid licence; a month later the government counted enforcement against 38 firms.
The National Lottery's own games, run by the Service itself, are the only licensed gambling, and the published age is 21.
The audit behind the Ethiopia betting relaunch
The draft audit runs from July 2023, the first month of the licences, to December 2025.
Payments through the companies came to roughly 199 billion birr over that span, with about 30 billion birr owed to the state in fees. Of that, 3.6 billion had reached the treasury; the shortfall, about 27.5 billion birr, is close to US$180 million.
A single operator accounted for 8.64 billion birr of it, and ten firms together for 19 billion.
That gap is the reason the Ethiopia betting relaunch is tied to a payments system first and a licence form second. The regulator intends to see every stake and payout as it happens, so that fees are calculated on the state's own record of each one.
Sumsub's account of the plan and iGaming Business's report on the regulatory gap set out the same figures.
What the relaunch plan requires
Under the 2026 plan, no new licence issues until the digital control system, part of the Digital Ethiopia 2030 programme, is running. In September 2026 officials tied the restart date to that system and to nothing else. Capital Ethiopia reported on 20 September that digital lotteries would come under the same regime.
No date has been set. A company that wants a licence will be inside the system before it takes a bet, and the Service will hold the record of what it owes.
Until then, any site taking Ethiopian bets does so without a licence, and a customer balance there has no regulator behind it.
What the Ethiopia page shows meanwhile
The Ethiopia address on this site carries no ranking and no bet-now link, because no licensed bookmaker exists to list. It records the dates, the audit figures and the relaunch condition. It will change on the day the Service publishes a licence.
A reader in Ethiopia who is offered a site today is being offered an unlicensed one. The balance there has no regulator behind it, and the Service's notices on illegal adverts say as much. Only the state lottery's own draws remain licensed, and a deposit made anywhere else rests on the operator's word alone.
Two questions have come up more than any other since the cancellation, from readers who still hold balances with the former licensees. Market terms a returning punter will meet again are set out in the betting guides.
Until licences return, the brands still taking Ethiopian accounts are offshore ones such as 22Bet, ranked on the Ethiopia page with the licence each prints and no Ethiopian number among them.
Questions about the relaunch
Is any sports betting company licensed in Ethiopia today?
No. The Ethiopian Lottery Service confirmed in July 2026 that every sports betting licence remained cancelled, and August 2026 brought government action against 38 firms. No reopening date has been published. The National Lottery's own games, run by the Service, remain the only licensed gambling.
When will licences be issued again?
No date has been set. September 2026 statements made the restart conditional on one digital control system, able to follow every company's payments in real time, under Digital Ethiopia 2030. Capital Ethiopia reported the plan on 20 September 2026.