Online Casinos in Cameroon

What This Page Can and Cannot Say

This page states no legal position on online casino play in Cameroon, because no Cameroonian primary source read for this page addresses online play of any kind. That is a finding rather than a gap. Cameroon has three gambling instruments on the Prime Minister's Office site, and the only one of them published as a web page — the 2005 ministerial organisation decree — does not mention the internet; neither the finance ministry nor the territorial administration ministry publishes anything on gambling that could be established. So no casino status is recorded for this market, which asserts nothing in either direction, and no operator is listed for Cameroon.

One thing about the sources should be stated plainly. The two instruments that set the gambling regime — the 2015 statute and the 2019 decree — are published as PDFs, so neither is quoted here and nothing is asserted about their contents.

The Governing Law

Cameroon's gambling framework rests on loi n° 2015/012 du 16 juillet 2015, with an implementing decree of 2019. The Prime Minister's Office publishes the decree under its own full title: "Décret N°2019/2300/PM du 18 juillet 2019 précisant les modalités d'application de la loi n°2015/012 du 16 juillet 2015 fixant le régime des jeux de divertissement, d'argent et de hasard." — the decree of 18 July 2019 setting out the arrangements for applying the law of 16 July 2015 fixing the regime of entertainment, money and chance games (translation). Neither text is quoted here, so nothing about their contents is asserted: not what they license, not what they prohibit, not what they say about the internet.

Who Administers Gambling

The one Cameroonian text on the machinery of gambling administration published as a web page is décret n° 2005/104 du 13 avril 2005, organising the Ministère de l'Administration Territoriale et de la Décentralisation, which the Prime Minister's Office publishes in full on its own site. It puts gambling in the territorial administration ministry rather than the finance ministry, and it does so at three levels.

At article 22, among the attributions of the Direction des Affaires Politiques, is "des questions relatives aux jeux et aux armes" — questions relating to games and to weapons (translation). At article 24, the Sous-Direction des Libertés Publiques is responsible for "du contrôle de l'application des lois et règlements relatifs aux jeux, aux associations et aux cultes" — controlling the application of laws and regulations relating to games, associations and religious bodies (translation). And article 28 creates a dedicated service, "Placé sous l'autorité d'un Chef de Service, le Service des Jeux est chargé" — placed under the authority of a head of service, the Service des Jeux is charged (translation) — with "du contrôle de l'application des lois et règlements sur les jeux", with "de la police des jeux, en liaison avec les administrations concernées" and with "de l'étude des dossiers d'autorisation d'exploitation des jeux": controlling the application of gambling laws and regulations, gambling policing in liaison with the administrations concerned, and examining applications for authorisation to operate games (translation). That service comprises "le Bureau des Autorisations" and a Bureau de Contrôle et de Police.

Two limits on that have to travel with it. The decree dates from 2005 and so predates the 2015 statute, which may have reallocated the function. And the ministry it organises has since been reorganised as MINAT, which publishes nothing on gambling that could be established. So this page describes what the 2005 decree provides, and does not assert that the allocation is unchanged today.

What Is Not Printed, and Why

No problem-gambling helpline is printed: no Cameroonian government body publishes one on any page read, and there is no state lottery site to carry one. No register of licensed operators is cited: none could be found. No sweepstakes position is recorded: nothing read addresses that model. No sub-national licensing is recorded: the Service des Jeux is a central service of a national ministry, though that cannot be stated as a certainty while the 2015 statute and the 2019 decree go unquoted.