Gambling in the Republic of the Congo is built on two pillars: a deep national love of football that fuels sports betting, and a long-standing state lottery tradition run today by COGELO. For decades the sector operated with little formal regulation, but Law No. 37-2024 of 11 October 2024 finally gave games of chance a modern legal framework. This remains a modest market with limited published data, so the picture below leans on official government sources and is deliberately qualitative where hard figures are not available.

A Short History

Lotteries and horse-race betting have long had a semi-official footing in Congo-Brazzaville, channelled through a state lottery vehicle now known as the Congolaise de Gestion de Loterie (COGELO). COGELO is a limited company created in 1991 on the remains of the earlier national lottery, with the state holding 90% and the Fondation Congo Assistance 10%, supervised by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Public Portfolio; its mission is to channel part of national savings toward economic and socio-cultural objectives, and it introduced the Pari Mutuel Urbain (PMU) horse-race betting to the country. For roughly thirty years, however, the broader betting sector - especially commercial sports betting - operated in a legal vacuum. That gap was closed by Law 37-2024, which regulates the creation, operation, taxation and supervision of games of chance and betting.

Football and the Betting Boom

Football is central to Congolese sporting life, and the fortunes of the national team, the Diables Rouges, together with the Africa Cup of Nations and popular European leagues, drive much of the betting activity. Commercial bookmakers have grown around this enthusiasm: CongoBet, a Congolese operator active since 2016, and Premier Bet, present in the country since 2013, built retail-and-online networks of shops and kiosks, and international operator PariPesa launched locally in 2026 with mobile-money payments. Younger, urban, mostly male bettors form the core audience.

Lotteries and Horse Racing

Alongside sports betting, COGELO’s lottery and PMU products give gambling a semi-official, revenue-for-good character. Because the national gambling company holds exclusive rights over lotteries, horse-race betting and scratch games, these remain state-channelled rather than open to private competition, distinguishing them from the more competitive sports-betting space.

Attitudes and Social Concern

Congolese attitudes to gambling are mixed and pragmatic. Sports betting is widely accepted among young men as an extension of football fandom and, for some, a hoped-for source of income, while lotteries enjoy a more respectable image thanks to their state and charitable ties. At the same time there is genuine social concern about problem gambling among young people - a concern the 2024 law explicitly addresses through its player-protection and anti-addiction goals. As the new regulatory authority is stood up, how firmly those protections are enforced in practice remains to be seen.

18+ only. Gambling should be entertainment, not a way to make money. If it stops being fun, stop.

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