How to Check a GRA Betting Licence in Kenya After the BCLB Handover

Who licenses betting sites in Kenya now?

The Gambling Regulatory Authority, usually shortened to GRA and sometimes to GRAK, licenses betting in Kenya. It took over from the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB) under the Gambling Control Act, 2025.

The Act is Act No. 14 of 2025. It was assented to on 7 August 2025 and published in the Kenya Gazette on 12 August 2025, and it repealed the Betting, Lotteries and Gaming Act, the older law the BCLB had worked under. The new authority is the legal successor of the old board, so licensing, supervision and enforcement now sit with the GRA.

The rules for licences came later. The Gambling Control (Licensing) Regulations, 2026 were gazetted on 30 June 2026 as Legal Notice 111 and took effect on 1 July 2026. They did not have a quiet start. The regulations were challenged, and the High Court suspended the licensing framework pending a judicial review; a later ruling let licensing go ahead while parts of the new fee and capital rules stayed on hold, according to reports in iGaming Business. If you read about Kenyan licensing in a source older than mid-2026, keep in mind that the ground has moved since.

What happened to licences issued by the BCLB?

They did not vanish overnight. On 2 October 2025 the BCLB stopped taking new annual licence applications while the handover ran, and licences already issued stayed valid until they expired, as Focus Gaming News reported at the time.

That explains something you will notice on bookmaker sites. Some print a licence number next to the GRA’s name, some still name the BCLB, and some name neither. On the regulator’s list of licensed operators, all ten bookmakers compared on this site appear under the GRA, whatever their footers say, and the table below shows each of them as the list does.

A BCLB reference on its own is not proof that a site is unlicensed. It may be an old page nobody updated, or a licence that still runs. It is, however, a good reason to open the list, because a licence issued before the handover has a date on which it ends, and a site will not announce that date for you.

What does a printed licence number tell you?

A printed number tells you that the bookmaker claims a licence and gives you a reference to look up. On its own it does not tell you that the licence is current, that it covers the website you are on, or that the company you pay is the one holding it. The GRA list answers those three questions, because it puts the number next to the company, the status and the domains.

On the list, each licence category has its own column: BK for sports betting, PG for gaming and PL for lottery. Betika’s sports betting licence is BK 0001117, SportPesa’s is BK 0001193 and Odibets’ is BK 0001095. A bookmaker that also runs casino games or a lottery may hold PG or PL numbers as well, and the one that matters for a sportsbook is the BK number.

Copying a number is trivial. Anyone can paste a real licence number into the footer of a copycat site, and from the outside the two look the same. That is why the number matters less than the details around it: the company name in the terms, the website address, and whether the list names that address among the operator’s domains.

Which licence numbers do the ten compared bookmakers hold?

The table shows each sports betting licence number as it appears on the GRA licensed operators list for the 2025/26 financial year, the authority and the company named there. All ten bookmakers were on the list with the status “Renewal” when it was checked on 5 November 2026.

Bookmaker	BK licence number	Authority	Company on the list
Betika	BK 0001117	GRA	Shop & Deliver Limited
SportPesa	BK 0001193	GRA	Milestone Games Limited
Odibets	BK 0001095	GRA	Kareco Holdings Limited
Mozzart Bet	BK 0001188	GRA	Mozzartbet Kenya Limited
Shabiki	BK 0001080	GRA	Playco Technology Limited
SportyBet	BK 0001203	GRA	Dreamhub Technology Limited
22Bet	BK 0001293	GRA	Nuntis Holdings Limited
BetPawa	BK 0001070	GRA	Nanovas International (K) Ltd
Pepeta	BK 0001141	GRA	Norm Kick-off Limited
Radabet	BK 0001340	GRA	Mobisphere Limited

“Renewal” means the operator held a licence and its renewal for the current financial year was in process when the list was published. A bookmaker appears on this site only if it is on the list, and the bookmaker reviews give the source and date for each value. How we score explains why a licence is a condition for listing but not part of the score.

How do you check a betting site’s licence yourself?

Start on the bookmaker’s own site, then take what you found to the regulator’s list. Five checks need nothing more than a phone and a few minutes.

1. Find the licence number and the company. Both usually sit in the footer or in the terms and conditions. A site that shows neither, anywhere, has failed the first check.
2. Open the GRA licensed operators list. The address on bclb.go.ke now opens on gra.go.ke, and the page heading names the 2025/26 financial year.
3. Find the bookmaker by its trading name, then compare the company on the list with the company in the terms. A licence is held by a company, and the two should be the same.
4. Match the BK number and the domain. The sports betting number on the list should be the one the site prints, and the address in your browser should be among the domains listed for that operator. Copycat sites borrow names with one letter changed or a different ending.
5. Read the status for the current financial year. An entry for 2025/26 with a current or renewal status is what you are looking for; a missing entry, or one for an older year only, is a reason to stop.

If everything lines up, write the number, the company name, the status and the date down. They help if a dispute ever comes up, and a status can change between one month and the next. Before you pay in, also look at the M-Pesa details: deposits go to a business Paybill, and a request to send money to a personal phone number is a warning sign at any bookmaker.

How do you ask the Gambling Regulatory Authority directly?

When something does not match, use the contact details on gra.go.ke, the authority’s own site, and ask a plain question: does this company hold a current bookmaker licence for this website? The list covers most cases, and the authority can answer what the list cannot, such as a domain that is missing or a status that looks out of date.

Give the authority enough to find the record in one go. A useful message names the trading name (for example “Betika”), the company named in the terms, the licence number exactly as printed, the website address, what the list shows and the date you read it. If the site named the BCLB, say so, since that points the authority to a licence issued before the handover.

Contact details on government sites change, and some older guides still list addresses of the old board. Take the current ones from gra.go.ke on the day you write rather than from a copy of a copy. If the reply says the licence has expired or never existed, do not deposit, and if you already have money there, keep your M-Pesa messages: they are the record of every payment.

What should make you stop before depositing?

A missing licence number is the clearest stop sign, and a number or domain the GRA list does not show is close behind it. So are a company name that differs between the terms and the payment screen, a personal number in place of a Paybill, and a site address that is close to, but not the same as, a known brand.

Two more are about tone rather than paperwork. A site that sells “sure” jackpot results or fixed matches is running a scam whatever licence it shows, because no licensed bookmaker can sell certainty. And a site that pushes you to deposit fast, with a countdown or a bonus that “expires in minutes”, is betting on you skipping the checks above.

One thing this guide cannot do is tell you that a licence will still be valid next month. The handover is still settling, the courts have already paused the new licensing rules once, and the list is published per financial year. A number checked today is a number checked today, so open the list again before a large deposit.