Ethiopia’s gambling culture is anchored by a state lottery dating back to 1961 and, more recently, a fast-growing sports-betting scene that boomed in the 2010s before running into a sharp regulatory backlash. Football betting became hugely popular among young, mobile-connected Ethiopians, but concerns over addiction, crime and family harm led to the closure of thousands of betting shops in Addis Ababa and, in December 2025, a nationwide revocation of all private betting licences. The oldest and most durable form of legal gambling remains the state National Lottery.

A lottery rooted in 1961

Gambling in Ethiopia has a formal history stretching back to 8 September 1961, when the National Lottery Administration - created under Emperor Haile Selassie by Proclamation No. 183 - issued its first “Regular” lottery on Ethiopian New Year (Enqutatash). That inaugural draw took place on 7 January 1962, Ethiopian Christmas (Genna). From the start, the lottery was framed as a way to fund social and economic development, giving it a degree of public legitimacy that private betting never fully earned.

ProductCharacter
National lottery (Lotto)State-run, longstanding, development-linked
Tombola / raffleTraditional draw games
Scratch cardsInstant-win state products
Sports betting (football)The core of the 2010s boom
Virtual sports & instant gamesRapid-fire digital betting

The Ethiopian National Lottery (Ethio Lottery) offers Lotto, tombola and scratch cards. When sports betting was legalised in 2012, football wagering quickly became the dominant private product, joined by virtual sports and instant games delivered increasingly through mobile phones.

The boom and the backlash

Ethiopia’s betting sector expanded rapidly through the late 2010s and early 2020s, drawing in young, urban, smartphone-using bettors. Private brands such as HuluSport, Habesha Bet and Betika operated under NLA licences, with the market capped at roughly two dozen operators.

That growth triggered a strong social and political reaction. Critics linked the spread of betting shops to youth gambling harm, theft and family breakdown. In the 2023/24 fiscal year the Addis Ababa city administration reported closing 4,118 betting houses, and enforcement escalated until, on 15 December 2025, the Ethiopian Lottery Service revoked all private sports-betting licences nationwide amid allegations of large-scale revenue concealment and national-security concerns.

Social attitudes

Ethiopian attitudes to gambling are ambivalent. The state lottery enjoys broad acceptance as a development fundraiser with decades of history, while commercial sports betting became a lightning rod for public anxiety about young people, debt and crime. The 2023-2025 crackdown reflected that split: officials framed shop closures and the licence revocation as protecting families and youth, even at the cost of government betting revenue.

Sources

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