Namibia is moving towards new gambling and lottery regulations covering online play, operator monitoring and staff registration, but the government has acknowledged that the regulator meant to enforce them is still short of people.

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, which oversees gambling, held regional validation workshops in October on amendments to the Lotteries Regulations and the Gambling and Gambling Activities Regulations, following an earlier consultation round in March and April. Submissions will now be consolidated in Windhoek before the revised rules go to gazetting.

Seimy Shidute, the ministry’s deputy executive director, said the changes were needed to “adapt to the global developments, such as the digital innovation and emerging technological trends”.

What is proposed

The package includes a new electronic software lottery licence for digital and online gaming platforms, measures to restrict underage access to online gambling and to limit participation by people with gambling problems, and a requirement for employees who handle money to register as gambling employees, which officials have linked to anti-money laundering concerns.

Operators would also pay new fees to fund a central electronic monitoring system. Draft figures discussed at the consultations include a 1% maintenance fee on gross income and a 5% monitoring fee on net monthly income. The Gambling Board of Namibia has gone to tender for a remote, real-time monitoring system under the Gaming and Entertainment Control Act 2018, alongside an automated licensing platform, with bids due by 5 November.

A separate 5% levy on prizes in promotional competitions has drawn pushback from businesses, which argue it could reduce consumer promotions.

Regulator short of staff

The reforms come with an admission about capacity. Environment minister Indileni Daniel told parliament that the Gambling Board is not fully operational and that staff are still to be recruited, adding that shortages limit consumer education and rehabilitation programmes. “Effective regulation, especially for online gambling, is currently a challenge,” she said, as reported by NBC.

Daniel said in February that weak oversight was costing the state revenue and exposing citizens to harm. Ministry of Finance accountability figures for 2023/24 recorded zero collected against a NAD5 million target for gambling income levies, although the minister told lawmakers that NAD17 million has now been collected for the Gambling Trust Fund. The Namibia Revenue Agency signed a data-sharing agreement with the board in March to cross-check operator and winnings data against tax records.

The revenue gap matters because the reform programme depends on the board funding itself. Without enough licensing, compliance and audit staff, officials have conceded, the board struggles to inspect gambling houses, supervise online platforms or chase unpaid fees and levies. The proposed monitoring system is meant to ease that burden by giving the regulator a direct, real-time view of operator transactions, but it will still need trained staff to act on what it finds.

Board chairperson Ben Shikongo urged the government to speed up gazetting of the fee schedule, particularly where previous fees were high, while acting chief executive Johannes Erastus said the proposed structure was based on research and benchmarking against international practice.

Why it matters

Namibia is one of several southern African markets trying to bring online gambling inside a licensing regime after years of informal and offshore activity. Whether the new rules make a difference will depend less on the text than on the Gambling Board’s ability to staff up, run the monitoring system and collect the fees it is owed.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has told prediction market exchanges Novig and ProphetX not to list a batch of sports event contracts that the two companies had self-certified, in the clearest sign yet that the federal regulator intends to police which sports markets reach the public.

According to Front Office Sports, which first reported the letters this week, the CFTC described the filings as “false self-certifications” and gave both exchanges the opportunity to explain why the contracts comply with the Commodity Exchange Act. The contracts had been certified but not yet listed, so no customer positions are affected.

The objections differ for each exchange. For Novig, the agency took aim at micro contracts such as which team scores the first points in a basketball game, which it said were susceptible to manipulation. For ProphetX, the issue was its so-called scorigami contracts, which pay out if a game ends on a final score never before recorded in that sport. The CFTC said those contracts did not meet the statutory definition of a swap.

Exchanges respond

ProphetX said CFTC staff had “requested that we voluntarily defer listing the Scorigami contracts pending further review”, that it had complied, and that it had since supplied further analysis supporting the products. It said it remained engaged with staff. Novig did not respond to requests for comment.

A CFTC spokesperson said any derivatives contract offered by a regulated exchange “must be compliant with the Commodity Exchange Act”, linking the move to protecting customers from potential fraud or manipulation. The agency declined to say whether it had ever before told a prediction market operator to withdraw a self-certified sports contract.

Warning shot before the final rule

Both companies are relative newcomers to federal regulation. ProphetX and Novig each won designated contract market status from the CFTC in June, a week apart, and moved quickly to build out sports-focused product ranges. Novig is also among the platforms that have gone to court against Missouri over state attempts to stop sports event contracts.

The letters follow an information sweep last month, when the CFTC wrote to several prediction market platforms, including Novig, Kalshi and Polymarket, about sign-up incentives and potentially misleading promotions. In June the agency also published a 267-page proposed rulemaking that would restrict in-game propositions and limit markets on high school sports, and it has since moved to define event contracts as swaps.

Front Office Sports reported that senior CFTC officials have also spoken with DraftKings and FanDuel, both of which run prediction market products alongside their sportsbooks, and warned that listing comparable micro contracts could draw the same response. One source quoted by the outlet described the step as a warning shot to the sector.

Why it matters

The intervention puts the federal regulator in an unfamiliar position. Prediction market operators have argued in court against dozens of states that sports event contracts are a matter for the CFTC alone. A CFTC prepared to reject individual sports contracts strengthens the case that federal oversight is real, but it also narrows the product range exchanges can offer, particularly in the fast in-play micro markets that drive engagement at traditional sportsbooks.

There is also an awkward mismatch with state regulation. Several state regulators permit micro bets at licensed sportsbooks, while the NBA last week moved to curb player props and first-basket style wagers with its sportsbook partners. Exchanges have reportedly complained to the CFTC that its stance conflicts with what states allow. How Novig and ProphetX answer the letters, and whether the agency carries its position into its final event-contract rules, will shape what sports markets the federal exchanges can list as the NBA and NFL seasons get under way.

The Premier League’s ban on gambling sponsors on the front of shirts has reduced fans’ exposure to gambling marketing during live matches by only 10.5%, according to new research from the University of Bristol.

The study, presented to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Gambling Reform on 21 October, counted 15,571 gambling messages across the opening weekend of the 2026-27 season, from 21 to 24 August. That is lower than in 2024 but 41.6% higher than the 10,999 recorded in 2023, the first year of the series.

Logos moved, not removed

The front-of-shirt restriction, agreed by clubs in 2023 and in force from this season, almost eliminated gambling logos from shirt fronts. But branding on shirt sleeves and training kit rose by 362% compared with previous years, and pitchside advertising accounted for 72% of messages during live matches.

Across the seven live Premier League matches broadcast in the UK that weekend, researchers logged 11,205 messages, with gambling marketing visible for almost 20% of broadcast time. Newcastle United against Liverpool carried the most, with 2,702 messages, more than 12 a minute, and gambling visible for almost 41% of the broadcast.

The researchers found that live-match messages were down 35.9% on the 2023 to 2025 average, but said most of that fall came from fewer sponsorship “lead-ins” around broadcasts, which no regulatory measure targeted. Stripping those out, they attribute a 10.5% reduction to the shirt ban.

Broadcast and social media

The team also monitored 15 hours of Sky Sports News, which carried 2,637 messages, and 15 hours of talkSPORT radio, which carried 207, with at least one gambling advert in every commercial break. On social media, the ten gambling brands with the largest followings ran 1,023 paid adverts on Facebook and Instagram, with an estimated UK reach of 153.2 million accounts, 16.6 million of them belonging to users aged 18 to 24.

The report found that 93% of gambling content was not clearly identifiable as advertising, and that unlicensed brands still gained exposure through Premier League coverage. Over the four years of the series, Premier League matches averaged 2,449 gambling messages per game, compared with 1,677 in Germany’s Bundesliga.

The comparison with North America was starker still: NBA and NHL broadcasts in the US averaged 483 gambling messages per game, and 505 in Canada. The research was funded by the University of Bristol, with former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton and his wife Steph as longstanding patrons of the project.

“This cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation,” said project lead Dr Raffaello Rossi, senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Bristol Business School, according to the university’s release.

Pressure for mandatory rules

The report also criticised the industry’s digital advertising code, which requires paid adverts to target over-25s unless platforms can demonstrate reliable age checks, noting that the list of exempt platforms was changed to include Instagram without notice or published evidence.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, co-chair of the APPG, said the findings were “further evidence that the voluntary approach to gambling advertising in football is failing”. The group is calling on the government to introduce stricter statutory rules on gambling advertising and close loopholes in the current mix of self-regulation and Advertising Standards Authority oversight.

The findings land as the UK industry is already grappling with higher taxes, and they are likely to strengthen calls for statutory limits on sports sponsorship and pitchside advertising, which until now have been left to voluntary codes.