The Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority has given cell community operators (MNOs), together with MTN, Airtel, Globacom, 9mobile, and certified value-added provider (VAS) suppliers 30 days to make sure the licensing and tax compliance standing of gaming companies the use of their platforms to supply services and products within the state.
The directive calls for affected firms to offer transaction information, service billing knowledge and income sharing data for gaming operators masking the duration from November 22, 2024, to the date of the authority’s public understand.
The authority additionally directed telecom operators and VAS suppliers to prevent onboarding gaming companies that can’t display legitimate state licensing and to droop present gaming services and products that aren’t duly permitted.
Telecom operators face new compliance responsibilities
Underneath the directive, cell community operators, VAS aggregators and VAS suppliers will have to test the licensing and gaming tax compliance standing of each and every gaming operator the use of their platforms to supply services and products in Lagos State.
The authority stated the information can be used to resolve the gaming taxes, statutory levies and different bills due from affected operators, together with acceptable consequences and pastime.
The necessities position further compliance duties on telecommunications firms and generation intermediaries that facilitate gaming services and products, even the place they aren’t the corporations without delay running the having a bet or lottery companies.
- “The Authority hereby clarifies {that a} licence, authorization or approval issued through the Nigerian Communications Fee (“NCC”) for telecommunications or VAS actions does now not represent a licence or authorization to behavior or facilitate lottery, having a bet or gaming actions in Lagos State,” it said.
It additionally clarified that the involvement of a telecom operator, VAS aggregator, fee channel or service billing platform does now not take away the requirement for the underlying gaming industry to carry a sound licence recognised through the state regulator.
Lagos warns towards facilitating unlicensed gaming
The authority stated the compliance directive is sponsored through provisions of the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority Regulation 2021, which limit the operation and facilitation of gaming actions with out the desired authorisation.
Segment 33(3) of the legislation prohibits an individual with out a subsisting licence or authorisation from running or engaging in gaming actions, deploying gaming apparatus, managing or accepting wagers, renting belongings, using body of workers or promoting for gaming actions in Lagos State.
The awareness additionally drew consideration to Segment 101(5), which supplies that the place an offence dedicated through an organization is established to have happened with the consent or connivance of a director, supervisor, secretary or different fundamental officer, or is because of that officer’s forget, the person and the corporate might each be held liable.
The authority due to this fact steered administrators and fundamental officials of telecommunications firms, VAS aggregators and different intermediaries to workout due diligence to make sure their platforms aren’t knowingly or negligently used to facilitate illegal gaming actions.
It warned that when the 30-day compliance duration expires, it could factor the precise statutory notices and pursue to be had regulatory and enforcement measures towards operators and entities discovered to be non-compliant.
What you will have to know
Previous this 12 months, Nairametrics reported that the Nigerian Tax Act 2025 has officially exempted “stakes” from Value Added Tax (VAT), putting off a key provision that in the past impacted the operations of gaming and lottery operators.
That is in step with Segment 185, Subsection M of the Act, which incorporates “cash, stakes or securities together with pastime in cash or securities” in its record of VAT-exempt pieces.
The transfer supplies readability that the quantity wagered on a recreation (stake) will have to now not draw in VAT, prompting operators to replace their methods to mirror this exemption.