Mozambique Approves Online Gambling Regime as Casino Tax Hits 54% of Target

Maputo has created a dedicated concession framework for online games of chance, splitting them off from the land-based casino regime just as casino tax receipts fall to little more than half of what the treasury budgeted. What it has not created, yet, is any published route to a licence.

• Mozambique's Council of Ministers approved a dedicated regulation for games of chance offered through electronic and computerised means in mid-July, creating a concession regime separate from land-based casinos
• Casino gaming-tax collection fell to MZN359.5 million, approximately $5.6 million, in 2025 against a budgeted MZN666.1 million, or 54% of target, and 7.3% below the MZN387.7 million collected in 2024
• The government attributed the shortfall to a significant increase in online gambling reducing visits to physical casinos
• Economy Minister Basílio Muhate placed enforcement and transparency at the centre of the government's messaging, naming the General Inspectorate of Games as the supervising body
• Neither the government nor the inspectorate has published a concession cost, tax rate, minimum-capital requirement, application process or technical standard, leaving operators without a route to market

Mozambique Has Split Online Games of Chance Away From Its Casino Concessions

Mozambique has approved a dedicated legal framework for online gambling, creating a separate concession regime for games of chance offered through electronic platforms, computer systems and other digital means. The Council of Ministers approved the Regulation on the Operation and Practice of Games of Chance or Fortune through Electronic or Computerised Means in mid-July.

The measure matters because of what it separates. Mozambique already licenses online sports betting and other products under its existing social and entertainment-games framework, which covers lotteries, raffles, mutual betting and virtual games. The new regulation concerns a different legal category, games of chance or fortune, which includes casino-style gambling, and places it under its own concession framework rather than the one governing the country's land-based casinos.

The timing is not incidental. Tax revenue from physical casinos has been falling. Casino gaming-tax collection reached MZN359.5 million, approximately $5.6 million, in 2025 against a budgeted MZN666.1 million, according to Ministry of Finance budget-execution data reported by the Portuguese news agency Lusa. That is 54% of the government's target, and 7.3% lower than the MZN387.7 million collected in 2024, a year in which the government budgeted MZN1.235 billion and collected 34% of it.

The government's own explanation points at the internet. It attributed the underperformance to a significant increase in online gambling, which it said had reduced visits to physical casinos, according to RTP's report on the ministry's 2025 budget-execution data.

Enforcement Language Is Running Ahead of the Licensing Detail

Economy Minister Basílio Muhate put enforcement and transparency at the centre of the government's messaging after the approval. Speaking after a 31 July meeting with the Mozambican Association of Online Games and Betting, Muhate said the government would continue to combat illegal gambling and called for stronger oversight, naming the General Inspectorate of Games (IGJ) as the body responsible for that supervision.

"We continue to defend the fight against illegal gambling," Muhate told O País. "Regarding all forms of illegality arising from gambling, we affirm and reaffirm our commitment to tackling it. We also reaffirm the need for greater inspection and greater transparency."

Muhate also called on operators to help address the social effects of irresponsible gambling, particularly among young people.

That call was echoed, and sharpened, from outside government. The economist Júlio Saramala told STV Notícias that the IGJ should publish its inspection criteria, annual reports and supporting evidence. He said high unemployment and "easy money" messaging could draw young people into gambling, argued that the social harms could outweigh the additional tax revenue, and called for more coordinated legislation and clearer risk information in advertising.

The domestic industry's reading is different again. Danilo Mussá, president of the Mozambican Association of Online Games and Betting, said the framework could give authorities a clearer basis to address foreign betting sites serving Mozambican consumers without generating local tax revenue.

"This approval is important because it gives us a legal instrument that will also enable us to combat foreign betting sites that enter our cyberspace," Mussá told O País. "People bet on them without using credit or debit cards, which represents a loss to the Mozambican state because taxes are not paid."

Mussá said the association would press Mozambique's National Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (INTIC) to block offshore sites. Publicly available reporting does not establish whether the new regulation itself grants INTIC any specific additional site-blocking power.

What the Regulation Does Not Say

For prospective licensees, the substantive terms are absent. Neither the government nor the IGJ has publicly set out the cost of an online-gambling concession, the applicable gaming-tax rate, minimum-capital requirements, the application process or the technical standards operators will have to meet. No application timetable has been published. The IGJ did not respond to questions from iGaming Business on when those terms would appear or how it planned to license and supervise operators.

A Framework Without a Tariff Is an Announcement, Not a Market

The gap between approving a regime and opening one is where most emerging African markets lose years, and Mozambique has just stepped into it. An operator cannot model a market without knowing the concession fee, the tax rate and the capital requirement, and cannot build without knowing the technical standards. Until those numbers exist, the regulation changes the legal status of online casino gambling in Mozambique without changing anyone's commercial decision. The risk is not that the framework is wrong; it is that the silence lasts long enough for the offshore operators the government wants to displace to consolidate the audience they already have.

The Tax Decline Is Being Read as a Leak When It Looks Like a Migration

The government's diagnosis, that online play is pulling customers out of casinos, is almost certainly correct, but the conclusion drawn from it deserves scrutiny. If land-based receipts are falling because demand has moved online, then a dedicated online regime is a channelisation instrument, and it should be judged on how much of that migrated demand it captures into the licensed perimeter, not on whether casino receipts recover. Those are different targets and they imply different tax rates. Set the online rate to defend casino revenue and the regime will price itself above the offshore alternative it is meant to replace, which is the failure mode that has produced low channelisation everywhere it has been tried.

The Blocking Ambition Is Larger Than the Instrument

The most concrete enforcement expectation attached to this regulation, site-blocking through INTIC, is the part least supported by the published material. An industry association can press a telecoms regulator to act, but blocking regimes that work are built on an explicit statutory power, a named decision-maker, an appeal route and a published list. Nothing in the available reporting establishes that the new regulation supplies any of those. If the framework's headline benefit to licensed operators is protection from offshore competition, and that protection rests on a power the instrument may not contain, then the commercial case for taking a Mozambican licence is weaker than the announcement implies.

The legal basis for a licensed online casino market now exists. Whether a market follows depends entirely on numbers the government has not yet published.