A betting licence in Nigeria is no longer one check: what seven regulators actually publish

For years, asking whether a betting company was “licensed in Nigeria” sounded like a question that should have one answer.

It no longer does.

Nigeria’s Supreme Court changed the structure of the market in November 2024 when it held that lotteries and games of chance fall within the legislative authority of the states rather than the National Assembly. The National Lottery Act could therefore no longer operate across the 36 states, while the Federal Capital Territory remained different because the National Assembly has legislative authority there.

On 27 October 2026, we reviewed public regulatory information for seven jurisdictions: Lagos, Oyo, Enugu, Edo, Cross River, Kano and the FCT. We looked at who regulates betting, whether sports betting is covered, whether an operator’s status can be checked publicly, and what regulators publish about fees or complaints.

The differences were substantial. Some jurisdictions provide searchable operator lists. Others explain licensing but make brand-by-brand verification harder. Published sports-betting licence fees also vary sharply.

There is also now a coordination layer above some of those state systems. On 7 May 2025, members of the Federation of State Gaming Regulators of Nigeria adopted the Subnational Reciprocity Licensing Framework, which introduced a Universal Reciprocity Certificate for specified activities, including online sports betting.

Twenty-two states were listed as participants, including Lagos, Oyo, Enugu, Edo and Cross River. Kano is not on that published member list, while the FCT remains a separate jurisdiction. The framework reduces duplicated licensing across participating states, but it does not turn Nigeria back into a single nationwide licensing market.

The Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority, LSLGA, maintains a public register showing company names, trade names, gaming categories and licence dates. Its current online sports betting and casino list includes brands such as Bet9ja, 1xBet, BetKing and AccessBet.

The Authority also tells consumers to check whether a betting, casino or lottery company holds a valid Lagos licence before using it, and it maintains a separate list of companies it identifies as unlicensed. It also offers a complaints channel for issues involving licensed operators or gaming agents.

That changes what “is this betting site legal?” means in practice. In Lagos, a player can check a state register rather than relying only on an operator’s marketing page or an old national licence claim.

The Federal Capital Territory is the important exception created by the Supreme Court ruling.

The FCT Lottery Regulation Office maintains separate lists for sports betting, casino gaming and interactive gaming. Its current sports-betting register includes Bet9ja, SportyBet, BetKing, NairaBET, MSport and dozens of other operators, with validity dates shown alongside entries.

The regulator states that operators not appearing on its approved list are classified as illegal operators in the FCT.

That shows why a single “Nigeria licence” label has become less useful. A state licence or register entry still has to be read together with the jurisdiction involved and, for participating states, any applicable reciprocity framework. An operator appearing in one register does not by itself answer its position in the FCT or in a state outside the relevant coverage.

When we checked the current public Lagos register and the FCT approved-operator page, for example, we did not find BC.Game listed under that brand name on either page. That should not be treated as a nationwide legal conclusion: an operator’s position can depend on jurisdiction, corporate entity and the regulator being checked.

For users trying to make sense of that distinction, how BC.Game fits into Nigeria’s state-led licensing system is a useful example of why operator status now needs to be examined jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

Oyo State Gaming Board makes the territorial issue unusually clear: its FAQ states that an Oyo gaming licence cannot be used in another state.

For sports betting, Oyo currently states a ₦500,000 registration and processing fee and a ₦20 million licence fee.

Cross River publishes a different structure. Its Lottery and Gaming Agency covers online sports betting, casino gambling, public online lotteries and interactive games. The current fee schedule lists a ₦2 million registration fee, ₦10 million for a new online sports-betting licence and ₦5 million for renewal.

The same portal says online operators pay a monthly Good Causes Levy calculated at 10% of stakes minus winnings. Its application process also asks for corporate and director information, tax records, business plans, technical-partner details, system specifications, responsible-gaming policies and financial information.

Kano creates a third price point. Its published Revenue Administration law provides for a ₦300,000 application fee and a ₦5 million sports-betting licence fee, alongside additional fiscal obligations including a Good Causes charge based on gross gaming revenue.

So the headline licence fee shown in the public material we reviewed ranges from ₦5 million in Kano, to ₦10 million in Cross River, to ₦20 million in Oyo.

That is a fourfold difference before comparing taxes, levies, renewals, technical requirements or local operating costs.

Taken purely as standalone published state schedules, those three headline licence figures add up to ₦35 million before processing fees, registration costs, renewals, levies, taxes, technology integration and compliance costs.

That arithmetic is not an estimate of the current cost of multi-state market access. Oyo and Cross River are among the states participating in the FSGRN reciprocity framework, while Kano is not on the published 22-state member list. The figures are useful because they show how different the underlying state schedules remain.

The Enugu State Gaming Commission says it regulates gaming and lottery activity, issues licences, registers agents and carries out monitoring, inspection and enforcement. Its published requirements include a specific sports-betting licence category.

Edo uses another model. Under the Edo State Gaming Law 2020, the Edo State Internal Revenue Service was empowered to regulate lotteries, lotto, online sports betting and other gaming businesses, including issuing licences and registering agents.

So the regulator itself changes by jurisdiction: Lagos has a lotteries and gaming authority, Oyo a Gaming Board, Enugu a Gaming Commission, Cross River a Lottery and Gaming Agency, Edo places the function within its Internal Revenue Service, and the FCT has a Lottery Regulation Office.

For an operator, those differences determine where licences are obtained, where fees are paid and which authority can take enforcement action.

The most interesting result of this review was not simply that Nigeria has multiple regulators. It was how differently those regulators expose information to the public.

Lagos lets users check licensed and identified unlicensed operators. The FCT publishes approved operators and validity dates. Oyo publishes licensing fees and states that its licence does not carry into another state. Cross River exposes a detailed digital application process and fee schedule. Kano puts fees in state legislation. Enugu identifies licensing categories. Edo identifies the authority responsible for the sector.

These are seven versions of the same basic task.

A bettor asking whether a platform is authorised should not need to become a regulatory researcher. But that is increasingly what the Nigerian structure requires.

After the 2024 Supreme Court judgment, saying that a company is simply “licensed in Nigeria” can omit the most important part of the answer: licensed by whom, for which jurisdiction, for which gaming category and until when?

A better consumer check is now more specific: what state am I in, which authority regulates betting there, does it publish an operator register, is the brand or legal operator listed, what category does the licence cover, and which regulator handles a complaint?

That is less convenient than a single national badge, but it is more accurate.

The structure may also become a competitive issue. The reciprocity framework is designed to reduce duplicated applications across participating states, but operators still have to understand which products and jurisdictions it covers, while separate state or FCT requirements remain relevant outside that coverage. Smaller entrants may still face materially higher compliance costs when they seek broad geographic reach.

The Supreme Court judgment answered a constitutional question. It did not create one simple replacement system.

Instead, Nigeria has developed a state-led system with two forces operating at once: individual jurisdictions still publish their own rules, registers and fees, while participating states also use a reciprocity framework intended to reduce duplicated licensing for specified online gaming activities.

That does not necessarily make the system weaker. Lagos gives consumers relatively easy operator-level verification. Cross River has made much of its application process visible online. Oyo clearly explains the territorial limit of its licence.

But nationally, users still face inconsistent access to regulatory information.

The next stage of Nigeria’s gambling regulation may therefore be less about deciding who has authority — the Supreme Court largely resolved that — and more about making state rules, reciprocity coverage and public operator verification understandable to operators and consumers.

Until then, a simple question such as “is this betting site licensed in Nigeria?” may continue to require several answers.

And increasingly, the first question should be: which Nigeria?

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