Egypt folds online betting crackdown into new digital safety bill
Egypt will now tackle online betting through a broader Digital Safety Law, which the government is expected to send to Parliament in about six weeks.
Ahmed Badawi gave the new timetable on 1 November. He chairs the House of Representatives’ Communications and Information Technology Committee.
Speaking on Al-Hayat TV, Badawi said betting apps had defrauded hundreds of thousands of Egyptians. He said the apps targeted people aged 20 to 60. Some users, he added, stay on them for 24 hours at a stretch.
Deadline missed
This is not the first deadline. In May, Badawi said the government’s amendments to the Cybercrime Law, Law 175 of 2018, would reach Parliament within a month.
He said the amendments would bring up to seven years in prison and fines of EGP500,000 for creating an app used in cybercrime, Saraya News reported, citing Al Arabiya.
iGB covered the plans in June (Egypt parliament moves to criminalise online betting). The bill never reached Parliament.
Badawi has now confirmed that the betting rules will go into the wider bill.
“The law will include the amendments planned for the Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018, the legislation regulating children’s use of social media, and new legislation to protect adults from the risks of technology as well,” he told Al-Nahar.
Brokers in the firing line
Badawi said the planned law would go further than blocking websites and apps. He said it would target betting brokers and their representatives inside Egypt, Youm7 reported. It would also cover anyone who promotes the platforms or helps citizens reach them.
He said the state had already blocked many betting apps. But the people behind them keep launching new platforms to get round the blocks.
Badawi pointed to the Cybercrime Law as a model. Its tougher penalties reach life imprisonment. He said they had sharply reduced electronic blackmail.
Blocking so far
Until now, Egypt has relied mainly on blocking. In February, Badawi described how his committee worked with the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation.
“I met the head of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority and we confirmed that the NTRA, the Supreme Council for Media Regulation and the parliamentary communications committee would work together to identify all betting apps operating illegally, which will be blocked,” he told Al-Watan.
By May, Badawi said, the authorities had blocked 70 betting apps, according to Al-Nahar. He promised that the coming legislation would be “decisive and firm”, Saraya News reported.
The committee’s timetable
The committee has set its own deadlines too. In early October, Badawi said it would open the new session with the Digital Safety Law and expected to finish its work within a month, Al-Ahram reported.
The bill grew out of a push to protect children online. In September, the NTRA barred social media platforms from letting children under 13 use them. It also set safe-use controls for 13- to 15-year-olds.
NTRA spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim said the wider draft law would also cover betting platforms and violent games, Fintech Gate reported.
No legal market
Egypt has no licensed online gambling market. The Civil Code makes gambling contracts void, and the Penal Code targets gambling premises. Only foreign passport holders may play in licensed hotel casinos, under the 2022 hotel and tourism law.
For years, MPs have complained that none of these laws deals directly with online betting. In January 2025, the committee’s deputy chair, Martha Mahrous, tabled her own bill to criminalise it.
Police keep up the pressure
Meanwhile, enforcement continues. On 3 November, the Interior Ministry said its public funds and organised crime unit had taken legal action against four suspects.
It accused them of laundering about EGP50m from “betting and speculation in cryptocurrencies”. The ministry did not say whether the betting took place online. It said the suspects had tried to hide the source of the money and give it “a legitimate appearance”, according to Cairo24.
The suspects allegedly set up companies and bought property, cars and motorcycles, Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.
The following day, Vetogate reported that the Public Funds Prosecution had ordered the arrest of a new suspect and the seizure and examination of the defendants’ mobile phones. Prosecutors were seeking to trace their contacts and financial dealings and establish whether anyone else had helped accumulate the money or conceal its origins.
The government has yet to publish the draft Digital Safety Law, leaving the scope of its betting provisions unclear.