Is online gambling legal in South Sudan?

Legal overview

South Sudan has no dedicated gambling statute. The main criminal rule is section 340 of the Penal Code Act, 2008, which makes it an offence to keep a house or place open to the public for games of chance, or an office for drawing a lottery, without a licence or permission from the appropriate authority, with up to six months in prison, a fine or both. The provision targets the organisers of land-based gaming and lotteries, not individual players, and says nothing about gambling over the internet.

The tax side changed with the Financial Act 2024/2025, which the President signed on 25 November 2024 and which the South Sudan Revenue Authority put into operation from 2 December 2024. Trade press reporting on an SSRA workshop says the Act introduced a 24% gross gaming tax, a 10% excise tax and a 20% royalty on platform vendors and service providers, together with application, registration, licensing and inspection fees for betting and lottery operations. These figures could not be checked against the Act itself, and no licensing rules, licence register or named licensing authority for online gambling were found.

Online casino games, sports betting and poker on the internet are therefore neither locally licensed nor expressly prohibited for residents. Offshore sites that accept players from South Sudan operate without any South Sudanese authorisation, and no blocking of gambling websites or payments was found. Players have no local regulator, complaint body or self-exclusion scheme to turn to, so any dispute has to be taken up with the operator or its foreign licensing authority.