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In 2017 betting websites were among the top ten most visited websites in Kenya. Research showed that 70% of gamblers in Kenya were youth aged between 26 and 26–35 years old with an average betting expenditure of Ksh. 132,000 yearly (Patascore, 2019). The saddening bit is that 54% of these youth were low-income earners whose betting addiction was supercharged by loans from mobile lending apps. This led to Kenya’s formal betting industry ranking as the third in Africa after South Africa and Nigeria. The government, through the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB), initiated strict measures to curb this unsustainable gambling craze. By 2024 betting websites had all but vanished from the leaderboard.
Some of these measures included TV/radio ad bans in 2020; thus, betting firms shifted 68% of ad spending to influencers (Geopoll). Social media influencers have been instrumental in marketing these platforms through TikTok challenges, coded hashtags, and gamified “big win” content. However, when public outcry hit a fever pitch due to the Aviator gambling epidemic, the BCLB had to act. It stopped all promotional activities by betting companies for the month of May, & when it lifted the ban, it announced that all influencer & content creator promotions were prohibited. The betting influencers were up in arms, issuing a 48-hour ultimatum for the BCLB to reconsider their decision.
What makes regulating betting influencers so challenging?
It is the perfect mix: outdated laws, runaway technology, the overwhelming scale of betting content and betting influencers, cross-border operations, linguistic camouflage, a dangerously unaware youth audience, limited regulatory funding, weak enforcement capacity—and a culture that sees regulation as an attack on livelihood.
The game is being played in 2025, but the rulebook was written in 1966 with some revisions in 2012 & 2023. Kenya’s Betting Act was created before the internet, smartphones, or the concept of a “digital promoter” even existed. This legal ambiguity is the root of most of the problems—you cannot prosecute what is not legally defined.
Because the law is silent, a new type of player has entered the field. They are impossible to pin down. It is not one single “enemy” to track. Instead, it is a decentralised army of over 15,000 betting micro-influencers/content creators spread across more than 10 different platforms. There is no central registry. Trying to license or monitor them one by one is impossible. Many are not just hiding behind fake accounts; they are completely anonymous ghosts. They use “Finsta” (fake Instagram) and other burner accounts to anonymise their identity. Think of a Telegram channel like “PesaFala” run by someone with no real name or face. You cannot prosecute a shadow.
To make it even harder, a staggering over 70% of these betting influencers targeting Kenyans do not even live in Kenya. They operate from other foreign jurisdictions, putting them completely outside the reach of the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB).
This borderless army uses incredibly sophisticated tactics to ensure their promotions fly under the radar. They make advertisements look like friendly advice. Instead of a clear ad, they post “How I won KSh 500K” tutorials, memes, and personal stories. It blurs the line between a paid promotion and an organic endorsement, evading traditional ad definitions. Because their content does not look like an ad, they do not label it as one.
An official survey showed only 12% of betting posts use the required #ad disclaimer (BCLB). Without disclosure, consumers do not know they are being sold something. In addition, they also have a secret weapon: language. To evade automated keyword detection systems, they use Sheng and other local languages (Kikuyu, Luo). Regulators can’t monitor what they can’t understand.
These deceptive tactics are so effective because the targeted ads focus on a particularly vulnerable audience. The core target is young people. A shocking 78% of Kenyans under 25 do not understand how betting odds work (Geopoll). Betting influencers exploit this naivety with misleading claims of “risk-free” wins and “guaranteed” strategies.
Faced with this massive, invisible army using clever tactics on a vulnerable population, the regulator (BCLB) is completely outmatched. The regulator is blind. They have no artificial intelligence (AI) tools to scan the 500,000+ posts that go up every single day in Sheng, Swahili and other vernacular languages such as Kikuyu, Luo etc. Manual monitoring is like trying to empty the ocean with a cup—it misses over 90% of violations.
Similarly, social media companies are not helping either. Their algorithms are designed to boost viral content, including betting promotions because it earns them ad revenue. They refuse to take down content without a court order, creating a massive legal hurdle. Even if the BCLB had the legal power and the right tech, it lacks the money. An estimated KSh 240M budget for technology is a drop in the bucket, and drawn-out legal battles against thousands of influencers would drain all resources.
To cap it all off, even if the regulator could overcome all these obstacles, they face one final, insurmountable problem. When authorities try to crack down, Gen Z and the betting influencers themselves frame it as an attack on their livelihood. Hashtags like #HandsOffOurHustle create a public backlash, driving the promotions even further underground and making the regulators seem like the villains. The result? A regulator fighting blindfolded, with tied hands, against an invisible, globalised network—and no clear win in sight.
The starkly different approach the BCLB takes towards betting advertisements on traditional media versus those by digital influencers is fundamentally about control and accountability.
Traditional media companies allowed
The BCLB permits media companies to run these ads because they are formal, licensed corporations with physical addresses in Kenya, making them fully subject to national laws and regulatory oversight. Their advertisements are overt, easily identifiable, and broadcast in official languages, allowing for straightforward monitoring against established advertising codes. This procedure creates a regulated ecosystem where powerful sanctions, like threatening a multi-million shilling broadcasting licence, ensure compliance.
Ultimately, while the BCLB can hold a media house accountable, it has virtually no effective levers to identify, serve, or penalise betting influencers/content creators on the many digital platforms.
The writer serves as the Chief Digital Officer at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
