URA to Manage All Betting Payouts

The Government of Uganda has introduced the Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Bill, 2025, in a decisive move to tighten tax enforcement and improve transparency in the country’s booming betting and gaming sector.

The bill was published as Bill No. 9 in the Bills Supplement to The Uganda Gazette dated March 25, 2025.

The proposed legislation, tabled by Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Matia Kasaija, seeks to amend the Tax Procedures Code Act, Cap. 343 to provide for, among other things, the use of national identification and business registration numbers as tax identification numbers.

However, the most far-reaching proposal is the introduction of a centralised payment gateway system for gaming and betting activities, which will be licensed by the Bank of Uganda and monitored by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).

Quoting directly from the Bill,

“An operator of a casino, gaming or betting activity shall only receive a wager or money staked and only make payouts through the gaming and betting centralised payments gateway system licensed by the Bank of Uganda under the National Payment Systems Act.”

The law also introduces stiff penalties for non-compliance. According to Section 93B,

“An operator of a casino, gaming or betting activity who does not use or is not integrated with the gaming and betting centralised payments gateway system is liable to pay a penal tax equivalent to double the gaming or withholding tax due or five thousand five hundred currency points, whichever is higher.”

This legislative push comes as the National Lotteries and Gaming Board (NLGB) targets Shs 300 billion in collections from gaming activities in the 2024/2025 financial year.

“We are onboarding many gaming operators on our National Central Monitoring System to ensure accurate revenue declarations,”

– said Denis Mudende, the NLGB Executive Director, in a recent interview with ChimpReports. He added that the digital system enables the board to “interface with operators and monitor their daily transactions which leads to honest declarations of revenues.”

The proposed amendments are part of a broader digital governance strategy. Uganda has already deployed sophisticated tools such as the Telecommunications Intelligent Monitoring System (TIMS) and Data Monitoring System (DMS) — both developed by Global Voice Group (GVG) — to track mobile money transactions across the telecom sector, particularly those linked to gaming and betting.

Officials say that since their deployment in 2016 and 2018, the TIMS and DMS platforms have helped URA independently monitor in real time all gaming activities executed via mobile money, which accounts for 92% of online betting transactions in Uganda.

In the 2019/2020 fiscal year, URA used TIMS/DMS data to collect just over $5 million in gaming taxes. By contrast, more recent figures indicate a dramatic increase to approximately $26 million, despite the exit of some major gaming operators.

From 2021 to 2022, data from GVG shows that URA’s use of mobile money transaction data for gaming led to a 301.48% increase in gaming tax revenue compared to the previous year — a sign of robust recovery and growing government capacity to track digital financial activity.

Observers say these developments signal a major leap in Uganda’s digital tax strategy and reflect an increasing emphasis on inter-agency collaboration and real-time data integration as tools for revenue mobilization and governance reform.

With the gaming industry expanding rapidly and the state reinforcing its oversight tools, the Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Bill, 2025, is expected to play a pivotal role in Uganda’s evolving digital taxation landscape.

Source: chimpreports.com

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Iwo Bulski

Issues related to the gambling business is engaged in more than 30 years. My empirical experience gives me the opportunity to present events and companies from this business with full knowledge and industry knowledge.

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Iwo Bulski

Issues related to the gambling business is engaged in more than 30 years. My empirical experience gives me the opportunity to present events and companies from this business with full knowledge and industry knowledge.