The Ethiopian Lottery Service has told the public that “at present, there is no sports betting organisation operating in Ethiopia with a legal licence,” seven months after it revoked every licence in the market. The notice, posted on Telegram, urged citizens to avoid unlicensed operators and gave a short code, 9695, for reporting them.

The regulator is not announcing a new policy here. It is restating an old one because something has moved into the space it created.

How the Market Was Switched Off

The shutdown happened in two steps at the end of 2025. On 4 December the ELS suspended the licences of 22 sports betting firms. On 15 December it revoked every remaining licence in the sector. Nothing has been licensed since, and no process currently exists through which an operator could apply.

That followed enforcement action of a different order. In November 2025 the National Intelligence and Security Service announced the arrest of 24 people it described as owners and accomplices of sports betting companies, alleging they had concealed more than ETB100 billion, around $620.5 million, in government revenue.

All 24 were released from custody in January 2026. No official explanation has been given for that.

A Market of 130 Million With Nowhere Legal to Bet

The scale of what was switched off is what makes the current warning necessary. Before the shutdown, daily betting transaction volume in Ethiopia was estimated at between ETB800 million and ETB1 billion, in a country of roughly 130 million people.

Demand at that level does not evaporate because a licence register is emptied. It relocates, and it relocates to exactly the operators the ELS is now warning about, which are unlicensed by definition because licences no longer exist to hold. Ethiopian bettors face a market where every available option is illegal, which removes any basis for choosing between them the way a player in a licensed market can.

The Courts Are Not Settled Either

The legal position is not fully settled either. The Federal High Court overturned the suspension of one operator, Hulu Sport, and the ELS obtained a temporary stay. So the courts have already shown willingness to question how the shutdown was carried out, which is an uncomfortable position for a regulator whose public message is that the ban is absolute.

The arrests sit awkwardly alongside it. A security service alleging concealment on the scale of ETB100 billion, followed six weeks later by the quiet release of everyone detained, does not read as a case that was tested and won.

Parliament Is Not United on the Ban

Inside government the direction of travel is contested. At a February 2026 parliamentary hearing, ELS chief executive Beza Girma said splitting oversight of betting between two ministries had made the sector difficult to control.

Mekiyu Mohammed, State Minister of Culture and Sports, went further the other way, arguing that permanently blocking betting was impossible given global conditions and that the country should instead establish a legal framework and work out how it could benefit from the industry.

Two Ministries, One Gap

The split oversight Girma described is not a technicality either. When two ministries share responsibility for a sector, an operator can work the gap between them, and the state ends up with neither a coherent licensing regime nor a single body accountable when it fails.

That is a minister making the channelisation argument in a country that has just run the prohibition experiment at national scale. The evidence sits in the ELS notice itself. A regulator that has to publish a warning about unlicensed operators, and hand out a hotline number for reporting them, is describing a market it no longer controls.

No Route Back for Anyone

For the operators that held the 22 suspended licences, there is no route back. No application process exists, so even a company that wanted to comply has nothing to comply with. That is the practical difference between a ban and a pause, and Ethiopia has not said which one this is.

The 9695 short code is an admission as much as an instrument.