There could be a dramatic change to Kenya sports betting rules with the 20% tax on betting stakes being removed from the country’s budget.
Kenya’s National Assembly has approved Finance Bill 2020 and forwarded it to President Uhuru Kenyatta who will now decide on whether or not he wishes to pass it into law.
The president has vocally opposed the entire gambling industry and last year urged Kenyan lawmakers to implement a complete ban on gambling-related activities.
President Kenyatta at the time commented that they have this thing called gambling and it is so bad that he alone could not finish it and that the constitution should be changed.
Sports betting stakes were taxed at 20% in Kenya after being introduced in the 2019/2020 budget in a decision that hampered the market. Following the introduction of the tax many sports-books in Kenya dropped out of the market. These included both SportPesa and Betin who decided to withdraw their services from the East African country.
An entity in Kenya called Shade.co.ke proposed that sports betting turnover be removed as they believe that its introduction has resulted in operators making cuts, including in local sports club sponsorships.
The National Assembly’s Finance and National Planning Committee informed Shade that the reason behind removing the tax was that the high level of taxation had led punters to placing bets on foreign platforms that were not subject to tax and thereby denying the government revenue.
They also explained that getting rid of the tax would ‘reverse the negative effects’ that it has had on the country’s sports betting industry.
According to Finance Committee Chair Joseph Kirui Limo, this is going to boost revenue, because currently revenue is going down.