Tanzania Betting Payment Methods

Is online betting legal in Tanzania?

Yes, with a licence from the Gaming Board of Tanzania (GBT), the regulator created by the Gaming Act, Cap. 41, in force since 1 July 2003. Section 26 of the Act lists the licences the Board issues, and three of them cover betting over the internet: the principal licence for sports betting, the internet sports betting licence and the internet casino licence, with a separate licence for online virtual games. The Gaming (Internet Gaming) Regulations, 2022, published on 1 July 2022, set the conditions of an online licence: the primary server must be in Mainland Tanzania, the operator needs a physical administration centre in the country with at least one director, and every advert needs the Board’s approval. The Board’s list of licensed sports betting operators, read on 19 October 2026, has 34 online licensees; six of them carry the same name as bookmakers in the list below: 1xBet (Katavi Gaming Limited), Betway (Media Bay Limited), Betwinner (Bellatrix Media Ltd), Helabet (Cheza IT Solutions Limited), Leonbets (Sandstorm Company Limited) and Parimatch (Ultimate Gaming System Limited).

The 2022 Regulations also write the player’s side of the account. A licensee may not accept a wager until it has authenticated your identity from a passport, a national ID or another document the Board approves (regulation 13); you register with your full name, age, addresses, phone number and a nominated account, and you may hold only one account per site (regulations 14 and 16). Anyone under eighteen must be kept out and may not claim a prize (regulations 39 and 40), and section 70 of the Act makes an adult who lets a minor play liable to a fine of at least TZS 500,000 or at least three months in prison. A licensee may not give you credit (regulation 46), must let you set your own deposit and wager limits, which take effect seven days after you change them (regulation 50), and must exclude you on request (regulation 48).

Running a gaming operation without a licence is an offence under sections 13 and 77 of the Act, and the Board’s site lists unlicensed online gaming sites among the illegal gaming activities it pursues. The texts we read contain no offence for a player who bets with an unlicensed site. The tax that reaches the bettor is the gaming tax on winnings: the Finance Act 2025 sets it at 12% of the amount or value of sports betting winnings from 1 July 2025 (it was 10% under the Finance Act 2022). The licensee is the withholding agent: it deducts the tax when it pays the win and remits it to the Tanzania Revenue Authority by the seventh day of the following month. Part of the money is earmarked for the AIDS Trust Fund and the Universal Health Insurance Fund. The operator pays its own gaming tax on gross gaming revenue, with rates published by the TRA.

Which payment methods work from Tanzania

Of the 48 bookmakers open to Tanzania, 40 list Visa and 38 Mastercard; 35 take Neteller, 32 Skrill, 23 Paysafecard, 15 Payz and 15 MiFinity; 36 take Bitcoin and 34 Ethereum; 15 list Google Pay, 11 Apple Pay and 6 PayPal. Twenty list a bank transfer. Only four, 1xBet, 22Bet, Melbet and Secretbet, list M-Pesa and Airtel Money, because the lists cover the whole cashier and not only the Tanzanian one; none lists Mixx by Yas. The rules that decide what actually goes through:

• Mobile money and cards are written into the licence. Regulation 16 of the Internet Gaming Regulations lets a licensed site take money by credit card, debit card or stored-value account, electronic and wire transfer, cheque, recharge voucher and mobile phone transfer, and your nominated account may sit with a bank, a financial institution or a mobile network operator. Cash is excluded, and so is credit from the bookmaker.
• Google Pay yes, Apple Pay no. Tanzania is on Google’s list of countries where Google Pay works online and in apps; it is not on Apple’s list, whose African entries are Egypt, Mauritius, Morocco and South Africa. A Tanzanian Visa or Mastercard still works typed into the cashier.
• PayPal only through approved operators. PayPal admits gambling payments only from operators it has approved, in jurisdictions where the activity is legal. The six bookmakers that list PayPal offer it on the national sites where they hold that approval; register and open the cashier before you count on it.
• Crypto. The Bank of Tanzania’s public notice of November 2019 says the shilling is the only legal tender, that virtual currencies are not legally authorised in Tanzania and that trading or using them is contrary to the foreign exchange regulations. Crypto is not among the methods the gaming regulations name, so the 36 bookmakers that take Bitcoin from Tanzania are offshore sites licensed elsewhere, most of them in Curaçao, whose crypto guideline of June 2026 requires them to screen the wallet you deposit from and to verify that you own the wallet you withdraw to.
• Licensed sites deal in shillings. Four of the six names on the Board’s list, 1xBet, Betway, Betwinner and Helabet, run Tanzanian sites in Swahili with TZS accounts, and 17 of the 48 bookmakers offer a TZS account in all; the others hold your balance in euros, dollars or another currency and convert every deposit and withdrawal.

Local payment methods

Mobile money is how Tanzania pays. The Bank of Tanzania’s National Payment Systems Annual Report 2025 counts 75,775,654 active mobile money users, 1,982,162 agents and six electronic money issuers, and mobile payments of 7,959 million transactions worth TZS 255,134 billion in the year. Since 1 July 2022 a government levy applies to electronic money transfers and cash withdrawals, set by the National Payment Systems (Electronic Money Transaction Levy) Regulations in 22 bands from TZS 10 to TZS 4,000; the regulations were amended on 30 September 2022, and the 2025 tariff posters of the two largest wallets show the levy only on cash withdrawals, from TZS 10 to TZS 2,000. The three services that matter:

M-Pesa

Vodacom Tanzania’s M-Pesa tariffs in force since 1 July 2025: sending to another M-Pesa user costs TZS 10 for amounts up to 999 and TZS 4,800 for 1,000,001 to 3,000,000; sending to another network TZS 15 to 5,400; sending to a bank TZS 10 to 5,000; withdrawing at an agent TZS 175 to 10,000 plus the government levy of TZS 10 to 2,000. The daily sending limit is TZS 5 million and the wallet may hold TZS 10 million. The poster has no fee table for payments to a business, so what a bookmaker deposit costs is on the bookmaker’s cashier page. Four of the 48 bookmakers list M-Pesa in their cashier, and a site licensed in Tanzania may take it whatever its global list says.

Mixx by Yas

Tigo Pesa became Mixx by Yas in November 2024, when Tigo Tanzania became Yas; numbers, SIM cards and USSD codes stayed the same. Its tariff page lists TZS 15 to send up to 999 and TZS 5,000 for 3,000,001 to 5,000,000 to another Mixx user, TZS 15 to 5,400 to other networks and up to TZS 8,000 to a bank; cashing out costs from TZS 300 plus a TZS 10 levy for 1,000 to 1,999 up to TZS 10,000 plus a TZS 2,000 levy at the top. None of the 48 bookmakers names it in its cashier list.

Airtel Money

Airtel Money Tanzania Limited applies the transaction limits set by the Bank of Tanzania and follows the Bank’s Financial Consumer Protection Regulations of 2019. Its standard merchant terms exclude businesses connected to gaming or gambling (clause 20.2), so a bookmaker that takes Airtel Money does it under another arrangement, which the terms do not describe. The same four bookmakers that list M-Pesa list Airtel Money.

How to deposit and withdraw from Tanzania

• Keep the betting account in shillings. 17 of the 48 bookmakers offer a TZS account; at the others every deposit and withdrawal passes through a conversion by your bank, card issuer or wallet, at their rate.
• Have your ID ready before the first bet. A licensed site may not take a wager until it has checked a passport or national ID, and it registers one nominated account per player: the name on the M-Pesa or Mixx line, the card and the betting account must match.
• Deposit by mobile money or card at a licensed site. Both are on the list of permitted methods in regulation 16; cash is not, and the site may not lend you money to bet. Mind the wallet limits: TZS 5 million a day and a TZS 10 million balance at M-Pesa.
• Count 12% off every win. Since 1 July 2025 the licensee withholds 12% of the amount or value of sports betting winnings and sends it to the TRA; what lands in your account is the net figure.
• Withdraw to the wallet you deposited from. A licensee transfers winnings to your nominated account; an M-Pesa or Mixx withdrawal arrives in the wallet, and cashing it out at an agent costs the operator’s fee plus the government levy, TZS 185 to 12,000 at M-Pesa by amount. An account left unused for more than 180 days may be closed, with the balance sent to your nominated account within five working days.
• Offshore sites. The Board lists unlicensed online gaming sites among illegal gaming activities, and the Act makes it an offence to run one; the texts we read have no offence for the player, but the 2022 rules, identity checks, one account, no credit, self-set limits, player balances kept apart, apply only at licensed sites.