Congo Partners with EAGT to Rebuild Betting Oversight

The Ministry of Sports and Leisure Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced, in a communiqué published on June 19, 2025, the signing of a memorandum of understanding for a public-private partnership with Burundi’s East African General Trading Company (EAGT).

This partnership aims to modernize the oversight of the gambling and sports betting sector, a rapidly expanding field in the country.

According to the Ministry, EAGT will implement a centralized digital monitoring system that connects operators’ platforms to transmit real-time reports to the Congolese state.

This initiative seeks to improve transparency in the sector, enhance tax collection particularly the 10% tax on bettors’ winnings and combat tax fraud.

While no specific timeline has been set for implementation, a pilot phase is planned for Kinshasa. An interministerial commission will carefully supervise this pilot to ensure robust oversight by public authorities.

EAGT will fully cover the project’s initial funding, with repayment staggered based on generated revenues, thereby alleviating any immediate financial pressure on the state.

This project is part of a broader effort to regulate the sector. In 2023, during a Council of Ministers meeting, former Finance Minister Nicolas Kazadi reported that 139 illegal operators were active in 2022, with no available data on their revenues.

That same year, tax collections reached only one billion Congolese francs, a figure considered very low given the sector’s real potential.

Faced with this situation, the government had considered establishing a regulatory authority equipped with a digital tracking system.

Projections suggested that this reform could generate over $100 million annually (approximately 280 billion Congolese francs at the current dollar value) solely from the tax applied to bettors’ stakes.

Burundi offers a successful example of this approach. In June 2024, N-Soft introduced a similar system there. According to the Director General of Burundi’s National Lottery, this system resulted in a remarkable 552% increase in the sector’s tax revenues.