Tanzania Rolls Out Real-Time Gambling Monitor to Curb Tax Evasion and Protect Players

Centralised Oversight for a Growing Market

The Tanzanian Gaming Board has launched a Central Electronic Monitoring System (CEMS) designed to give regulators unprecedented visibility into the country’s gambling operations. From casinos to betting shops, all licensed operators will now have to stream real-time data to a central cloud-based platform, allowing the government to monitor stakes, payouts, and user activity across locations.

CEMS is hosted at the National Internet Data Centre in Dar es Salaam and uses encrypted telemetry modules — essentially black boxes — to transmit detailed, time-stamped data. These include game-level breakdowns of bets and winnings, player session logs, and mobile-money transactions cross-referenced with national ID and geolocation data.

Plugging Revenue Gaps with Digital Tools

According to Tanzania’s Finance Ministry, an estimated TSh 78 billion in potential tax revenue was lost last year due to unreported transactions at betting venues. Under the new system, gaming returns reported by operators must align exactly with the automated data collected by CEMS.

The 25% gross gaming revenue (GGR) tax will now be calculated daily and settled through the Bank of Tanzania’s real-time payment system. Officials say the platform can process up to 8,000 transactions per second and is scalable for high-traffic periods such as Premier League weekends or major boxing bouts.

Beyond tax compliance, CEMS offers powerful enforcement features. The Gaming Board can flag suspicious activity, such as an unusually high payout ratio over an eight-hour window. If triggered, machines can be shut down remotely until inspected. Similarly, if the system detects unusual odds movements in sports betting markets, it can suspend betting on those markets pending an integrity review.

Protecting Consumers in a Rapidly Evolving Sector

Industry analysts and public health advocates in Tanzania have long raised concerns about underage gambling and the manipulation of gaming equipment. The introduction of CEMS marks a significant regulatory shift intended not just to secure state revenues, but also to address consumer protection issues.

The system enforces deposit limits by integrating directly with payment gateways, ensuring that daily and weekly spending caps are observed. Additionally, the government is working on a unified self-exclusion registry, enabling people at risk of gambling harm to block themselves from all licensed platforms in the country.