Ethiopia: 9 months after the December 2025 Betting Ban

Nine months after Ethiopia revoked every sports betting licence, search demand is still 84.8% below the November 2025 level.

On 15 December 2025 the Ethiopian Lottery Service revoked the licensed sports betting shelf. Blask data for November 2025–August 2026 tracks what that decision did to national demand, the revenue baseline, and brand share.

Blask metrics

Blask Index — measure of iGaming demand for brands and markets.
BAP (Brand’s Accumulated Power) — a brand’s share of total market demand in a country and period.
CEB (Competitive Earning Baseline) — projected revenue baseline.

What happened in December 2025

Ethiopia closed licensed sports betting in two steps. On 4 December 2025 the Ethiopian Lottery Service suspended 22 operators after intelligence from security services. On 15 December it revoked every sports betting licence and ordered payment gateways and banks to block betting transactions.

The official statement cited illegal practices, licence breaches, and illicit money transfers as a national-security risk. From that date, new bets and deposits were prohibited. The onshore shelf that had carried Ethiopian search demand through November was gone.

Demand after the ban

Blask Index for Ethiopia fell hard around the revocation, then stayed compressed for most of 2026.

From November to December 2025 Ethiopian Blask Index dropped about 41% MoM while suspensions and the full ban landed in the same calendar month. From December to January the next step was steeper — about 76% MoM.

By August 2026, Blask Index still sat about 85% below November 2025.

Line chart of Ethiopia's monthly national demand (Nov 2025–Aug 2026); demand falls from 24.6M to around 3.7M and then remains low.

CEB after the ban

CEB did not grow through the ban window. It declined about 33% from November 2025 to August 2026, while search demand fell by about 85%. So demand fell harder than potential market revenue.

Line chart titled 'Ethiopia CEB' showing monthly market CEB (avg) from November 2025 to August 2026; the orange line declines from about .21M in Nov to around

Brand count in the CEB sample also thinned, from just over 100 names in November–December to the high 70s for most of 2026.

Who owns attention now

November 2025 the top five by Blask Index was full of local brands: DashBet with the largest BAP, followed by Hulusport, betX (mixed license), AradaBet, and Waliya Sports Betting. By August 2026 Melbet took first place in the top-tier leaderboard, followed by Chatki, KonjoBet, and 1xBet. From the November top five, only betX remained — and its share had shrunk to under 1%.

Infographic showing Ethiopia's top brands by Blask Index, comparing November 2025 to August 2026. — image

Bottom line

Nine months after Ethiopia revoked every sports betting licence, Blask Index demand sits about 85% below November 2025, CEB is about a third lower, and the leaderboard has moved from DashBet and Hulusport to Melbet, Chatki, and KonjoBet.

Ethiopia now reads as a suppressed-demand market: residual search remains, the earning baseline held up better than attention, and competitive share belongs to brands that can surface without an onshore licence.

About Blask

Blask is an AI-powered platform for iGaming and gambling market analytics. The company turns fragmented open-source signals into real-time insight on brand visibility, player demand, and baseline revenue metrics, helping teams move first, spend smarter, and reduce risk across global markets