Ethiopian iGaming market reshaped after shutdown in mid-December
A new big four emerged as the old leaders vanished and demand fell more than sevenfold.
January 2026 was the first full month after Ethiopia’s Lottery Service (ELS) revoked the licences of all sports-betting operators and ordered a halt to betting activity from 15 December 2025. Blask data shows a complete reset, a much smaller market, with attention concentrated in a new set of brands.
Blask metrics
- Blask Index — real-time measure of market demand volume for iGaming brands in a given country, based on normalized search data.
- BAP (Brand’s Accumulated Power) — a brand’s percentage share of total market demand in a specific country and period.
Demand collapsed
Blask Index in Ethiopia fell from 24.55M in November to 3.42M in January, more than a sevenfold drop. The market also thinned out: active brand count fell from 139 to 114.
Both trends trace directly to the mid-December shutdown ordered by the regulator. ELS linked it to a wider investigation and pulled banks and payment intermediaries into enforcement, ordering betting-linked transactions to be blocked.
New leaders
In November, the market was rising. Licensed brands captured the majority of user demand. The leaders were DashBet, Hulusport, betX and AradaBet. Combined, they controlled 53.3% of market BAP.
A new big four, KonjoBet, Chatki, Melbet and 1xBet controlled 86.9% of attention in January, and the top ten accounted for 97.8% (up from 77.0% in November).
The four new leaders did not just take a bigger slice of a smaller market (by BAP), their Blask Index volumes increased in absolute numbers. The largest gains came from Melbet (about 14x) and 1xBet (about 5x).
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Conclusion
Authorities have yet to announce a restart date for the licensed market. Until they do, the remaining demand is concentrated in a small cluster of brands, with four names taking almost nine-tenths of total players’ attention.
About Blask
Blask is an AI-powered platform for iGaming and gambling market analytics. The company turns fragmented open-source signals into real-time insight on brand visibility, player demand, and baseline revenue metrics, helping teams move first, spend smarter, and reduce risk across global markets.
