Checked on 13 August 2026
Start with the part that decides everything else: no betting company holds a valid Ethiopian licence at the moment. That is not our reading of the law, it is what the regulator itself keeps repeating. Below is what we could verify, with the source next to each line, and nothing we could not verify.
Lotteries and betting sit with the National Lottery Administration (Ethiopian Lottery Service), the state body that licenses lotteries and betting, under the Ministry of Finance. The older regulator domain nla.gov.et does not resolve in DNS (checked 13 August 2026). The working state site is ethiolottery.et. The address that works today is ethiolottery.et, questions go to info@ethiolottery.et.
The regulator suspended 22 betting companies on 4 December 2025 and revoked every remaining sports betting licence with effect from 15 December 2025. The order covers online platforms, betting shops, agents and the payment services attached to them. In its statement of 30 July 2026 the Ethiopian Lottery Service repeated that no betting organisation operates in the country with a legal licence.
The wording of the regulator, as quoted on 30 July 2026: "At present, there is no sports betting organisation operating in Ethiopia with a legal licence."
The regulator has no public register of licensed betting operators online, so the revocation is documented through its statements to the press, not through a document on a government site. Checked 13 August 2026.
18 years. The state operator puts it plainly in its own rules: "Participants must be at least 18 years old or the legal age in their jurisdiction." (terms and rules, responsible play).
There is no public register of licensed betting operators in Ethiopia. Questions about a licence go to the Ethiopian Lottery Service directly. Contact page of the Ethiopian Lottery Service.
The one provider with a published price list is telebirr. Ethio telecom prints the whole tariff grid, so these are its numbers, not an estimate. All amounts in ETB.
| Operation | Fee | Ceiling of the published grid |
|---|---|---|
| Send money to another telebirr wallet | 1 to 8 ETB, by amount: 1 ETB up to 100, 2 ETB to 500, 4 ETB to 1,500, 6 ETB to 5,000, 8 ETB to 75,000 | 75,000 ETB is the top of the published tariff band for a single transaction |
| Cash out at an agent | 1.2 ETB on 25.1-50 ETB, rising to 25 ETB on 30,001-75,000 ETB | 75,000 ETB is the top of the published tariff band for a single transaction |
| Cash in at an agent | free up to 250 ETB, then 3 ETB to 500, 4 ETB to 1,500, up to 15 ETB on 20,001-75,000 ETB | 75,000 ETB is the top of the published tariff band for a single transaction |
| telebirr to a bank account | 1 ETB up to 100, 3 ETB to 500, 6 ETB to 1,500, 9 ETB to 5,000, 15 ETB to 75,000 | 75,000 ETB is the top of the published tariff band for a single transaction |
Source: telebirr pricing, Ethio telecom, taken 13 August 2026. A betting site can add its own charge on top, that part is not in this grid.
Two more wallets are used widely in the country and neither publishes a tariff we could point at: