More News from Africa
Betting Operator BetKing Becomes International Betting Integrity Association’s latest member.
International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has announced that Africa’s betting operator, BetKing has become their latest member; and is expected to work alongside network of other locally licensed members worldwide.
BetKing was founded in 2018 and holds the betting licenses of countries like Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Ghana.
According to Karim Faith, BetKing’s head of trading operations, the organization is delighted to work with IBIA and other colleagues across the industry fight against corruption in sport and to tackle match-fixing and all associated fraudulent activity prevalent in the industry.
IBIA members in total, is reported to for €115bn (£98bn/($123bn) in global annual turnover.
The Proposal to National Assembly to Hike Government Tax has been thrown out by the Kenya Finance Committee.
The Finance and National Planning Committee of Kenya’s National Assembly in its updated version of the country’s Finance Bill, following a period of public input on the Treasury’s version of the bill has thrown out the proposal to hike the government tax to 20% on betting stakes, plus a 15% tax on gambling advertising spend.
The updated version of the bill, will have the excise tax on betting stakes remain at 7.5%, while no new tax would be brought in for gambling advertising. They based their recommendation on the fact that the current 7.5% rate has only been in place for less than a year prior to the proposed amendment. According to their recommendation, there has not been enough time to adjudge whether the current rate is a success or not.
Also they opined that the country already have regulations guiding advertising of gaming activities and thus it absolutely unnecessary to indirectly regulate gambling ads through taxation.
The bill will now go to the floor of the National Assembly, where it could potentially be subject to further changes. If approved by both the National Assembly and the Senate, it may be signed into law by the president, Uhuru Kenyata.
Elon Musk Secures License to Bring Starling, his internet service to Africa
Elon Musk has secured license to bring Starlink, a satellite internet service by his SpaceX to Nigeria and Mozambique. Starlink is expected to launch by the 3rd quarter of the year. The product is already available to about 400,000 subscribers in 36 countries and is said to deliver high-speed internet to anyone in the world even to those in rural areas with low connectivity.
It promises to be massive improvement especially for the startup ecosystem in Nigeria, however with the reported price tag of the service, it is left to be seen if the people in the rural areas of both countries will actually benefit from it.
