Burkina Faso’s gambling culture is anchored in a single institution: LONAB, the national lottery operator, a state monopoly whose origins date to 1967 and which has run the country’s lottery and betting for generations. Everyday gambling here means the national lottery, instant scratch games, and horse-race (PMU) betting, with football betting now hugely popular. In December 2023 LONAB modernised the scene by launching Lonabet, an online sports-betting platform. All of this sits within a Muslim-majority society whose relationship with gambling is pragmatic and varied rather than uniform.

A history built around LONAB

LONAB traces its origins to a lottery established in 1967 (then under the country’s former name, as the Loterie Nationale Voltaïque, and later renamed Loterie Nationale Burkinabè). It was converted into a state-owned company in November 1994. From the outset it was designed to channel gaming revenue toward socio-economic development, and it remains the holder of the national monopoly on games of chance.

Over the decades LONAB built a physical network of agencies and points of sale across the country, selling lottery tickets and running instant games alongside its betting products.

The games people actually play

  • Lottery and instant games. LONAB’s lottery draws and instant scratch games are long-standing staples of Burkinabè gambling.
  • Football betting. Interest in football (soccer) betting has grown strongly, and it is central to the appeal of the Lonabet platform.
  • PMU horse-race betting. Pari mutuel betting on horse racing, popular across francophone West Africa, is part of LONAB’s traditional offer.
  • Online sports betting (Lonabet). Launched publicly in December 2023, Lonabet covers football, basketball, boxing, tennis, handball and volleyball, and can be used via website or mobile app funded through mobile money.

The Lonabet moment

Lonabet marked LONAB’s move into digital play. Available from around mid-2023 and officially launched in December 2023 by the Minister of Economy, Finance and Prospective, it reported roughly 45,000 registered users and more than 40,000 active players at launch. LONAB’s leadership framed it as strengthening and diversifying the state’s gaming offer, with revenue redistributed toward national development.

In early 2025 the state acted to protect this channel: following a February 2025 instruction from the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the regulator ARCEP directed mobile operators to block online gambling platforms not authorised through LONAB.

Religion and social attitudes

Burkina Faso is a Muslim-majority country with substantial Christian and traditional-religion populations. Islam generally discourages gambling, and observant Muslims may abstain on religious grounds. In practice, though, state-organised gambling has been a permitted and widely used pastime for decades, and attitudes vary widely across communities and individuals.

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