Govt closes 28 unlicenced city betting shops

May 07, 2017

Jonathan Kyeyune, the Head of Public and corporate Affairs at the Board, said the crackdown is a country wide operation to streamline the operations to fit recommendations of the law.

Government has closed a total of 28 unlicensed gaming and betting shops in the city, for failure to meet the requisite standards, after an impromptu inspection was conducted on Friday in the suburbs of Nakawa, Bugolobi, Kawempe, Bwaise, and Kasubi.

The inspection team was headed by Molly Bugiri the enforcement officer at the Lotteries and Gaming Regulatory board.

The inspection ordered on Friday, the Ministry of Finance, Planning andEconomic Development, revealed that most of the shops were operating illegally in addition to being below the required minimum size of 30 square metres.

Jonathan Kyeyune, the Head of Public and corporate Affairs at the Board, said the crackdown is a country wide operation to streamline the operations to fit recommendations of the law.

 



"We are closing operations of those machines that are not licensed as well as those that are not compliant to the law," Kyeyune said.
 
Among the gaming and betting shops that have been closed, is the prominent Push to win that has various branches around the country.

One of the Push 2 Win centres at Kawempe trading centre, was found to be operating without a licence contrary to Section 26 of the Lotteries and Gaming Act of 2016. The other branch too had no licence and was operating next to a Primary school contrary to the law.

Though the operation was carried out successfully with public support, at this particular shop a daily customer blamed failure of operators to comply with the law to negligence by government.


"In the first place Uganda was not ready for this kind of business considering the poverty levels. These guys have been operating here for more than two years. We did not know they had no licence. It is absurd that the investors are doing business illegally while duping us lots of money," Robert Dungu also a motorcycle rider noted.

Other shops that were affected were the Bet Win operating as a branch of Kings Sports Betting but unregistered, the Wolf sports betting  in Bwaise,Victory sports betting in Kasubi  Universal gaming on Nabweru road, Club win , and TopBet in Kasubi, were found to be operating below the required minimum size of 30 square metres

 

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