Online Casinos in Zambia

What This Page Can and Cannot Say

No legal position on online casino play in Zambia is stated on this page, because no Zambian primary source read for it addresses online casino play. What Zambia does have is a land-based casino licensing regime administered by a ministry, a lotteries regime with its own board, and a betting levy statute. None of the three speaks to the internet in anything that could be read.

One point about the sources shapes everything below. The National Assembly of Zambia publishes every Act as a PDF, so no section of any Act is quoted here. What the Assembly does publish on each Act's own page is the Act's long title, and that is what is quoted. The long title of a statute is a reliable guide to its subject matter and no guide at all to its detail, and this page does not treat it as more than that.

Who Licenses Casinos

Casinos are a portfolio subject of the Ministry of Tourism. The Ministry's own Mandate page states that "According to the Gazette Notice No. 7039 of 2021, published in the Government Gazette, Vol. LVII, No. 90, of Friday, 27th September, 2021, the Ministry is allocated the following portfolio Subjects and Statutory Bodies/Institutions:" and the subject list that follows includes "Casinos;" alongside accommodation establishments, hotels and rest houses, culture policy and the rest of the tourism portfolio.

The Ministry runs the licensing in practice. Its Casino Licensing page carries "GUIDLINES FOR CASINO LICENSING", "APPLICATION FOR RENEWAL CASINO LICENCE", an application for declaration of authorised games and rules, an application to use gaming equipment or tokens, and bank details for casino licensing. Each of those is a form or a guideline rather than a statement of law, and nothing is asserted here about their contents.

The Statutes

The Casino Act is a premises regime, and its long title says so. It is an Act "to provide for the granting and revocation of casino licences and temporary casino licences, to authorise the playing of games and the sale of intoxicating liquor in licensed premises; to specify the conditions which may be attached to a casino licence to exempt the holder of a casino licence from certain provisions of the Liquor Licensing Act; to provide for the appointment of casino inspectors; to repeal the Casino and Gaming Machines (Prohibition) Acts". Licences that authorise play and liquor sales in licensed premises, policed by casino inspectors, are land-based by construction.

The Lotteries Act is "An Act to provide for the control and regulation of lotteries; to provide for the setting up of a Lotteries Control Board and for the powers and duties thereof; and to provide for matters connected therewith and incidental thereto." The Betting Act, 2025, which the National Assembly lists as "Act No. 27 of 2025", is "An Act to provide for the imposition, payment and collection of a betting levy and provide for matters connected with, or incidental to, the foregoing." — a levy statute, not a licensing framework.

On the Reported Gaming Act of 2024

A Gaming Act of 2024 is widely said to have replaced Zambia's earlier casino and lotteries legislation. It is not on the National Assembly of Zambia's own published list of Acts of Parliament, read page by page on 11 October 2026 across every year from 2021 to 2026. The 2024 Acts on that list run from No. 1 to No. 30 and none of them is a Gaming Act; across the whole 2021 to 2026 range, the only gambling-related entries are the Betting Control (Amendment) Act, 2021 (Act No. 50 of 2021) and the Betting Act, 2025 (Act No. 27 of 2025).

That is an absence from an official list, and it is recorded as exactly that. It is strong evidence and not proof: a list can lag, and the Assembly's site carries a notice that its content is being updated. What it does establish is that no Gaming Act of 2024 could be sourced, and so none is described on this page and no regulator is named on the strength of one.

What Is Not Printed, and Why

No problem-gambling helpline is printed: no Zambian government body publishes one on any page read for this market. No sweepstakes position is recorded: nothing read addresses that model. No sub-national licensing is recorded: the Ministry of Tourism holds the casino portfolio nationally.