Africa H1 Blask Index: 39 markets up, 3 down
In the first half of 2026 growth was the continental default in Africa, and the downside list almost disappeared.
H1 2026 gave Africa a rare one-sided read. Of the 42 markets Blask tracks on the continent, 39 gained demand versus H1 2025. Botswana led the gainer board; Ethiopia’s December 2025 betting shutdown drove the steepest fall. The boards below rank relative change for each country.
Blask metrics:
Blask Index shows interest in iGaming in a particular country. Figures below are the sum of monthly Blask Index for H1 2025 versus H1 2026.
The upside board is where H1 lived
Rank the continent by H1-to-H1 change and the gainer board is long. 39 markets cleared the prior-year half. Continental Index across the comparable set rose about +24%.
Botswana is the clean H1 breakout. Index roughly quintupled (+445.7%). The monthly path is not a single June spike: every month in H1 2026 printed several times the same month in 2025, with June still the high point of the half.
Sudan’s +236% looks loud until you open the base. Absolute Index stays in the tens of thousands — far behind Botswana, Zimbabwe, and the mid-tier West African names on the board.
Gabon (+123%), Benin (+119%), Chad (+109%), and Zimbabwe (+106%) fill the next tier. Zimbabwe is the volume name in that pack: H1 Index doubled while the 2026 monthly path climbed almost every month from January through June.
Namibia, Gambia, and Sierra Leone round out the top ten on percentage. Further down the full gainer list, scale still lives in the usual large GEOs. South Africa (+48.7%), Nigeria (+46.8%), Tanzania (+21.1%), Mozambique (+30.5%), and DR Congo (+9.7%) all added demand versus H1 2025 — smaller percentages on much larger bases. In absolute terms, South Africa and Nigeria removed more Index from the “missing” side of the ledger than almost any peer gained.
Read Also: Crash Games Across Africa’s Four Blask Markets: One Plane, Four Different Lobbies
The downside board almost disappeared
If the upside list is where first-half demand concentrated, the downside list is where the story simplifies. On a true H1-versus-H1 cut, only Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Tunisia lost Index among the 42-GEO comparable set.
Ethiopia’s –73.7% is still a cliff — the deepest fall on the continent in both percentage and absolute terms. The Ethiopian Lottery Service revoked every sports betting licence effective 15 December 2025, after an earlier suspension wave that month. H1 2026 never recovered toward the H1 2025 monthly band: January opened on a new floor, and June stayed on that lower band.
Rwanda (–36.2%) is the second downside name by both percentage and absolute Index. The H1 2026 monthly path sits below every corresponding month in H1 2025, with the gap widest against May–June 2025.
Tunisia (–7.2%) is the mild Maghreb decline on this board. Inside H1 2026 the path still fades month by month from January through June. That cooling sits next to a January 2026 parliamentary draft that would toughen the 1974 framework and push ISPs and payment firms to block unlicensed online gambling.
Bottom line
Growth was the African default in first-half 2026 when you compare half to half. The structural break is still Ethiopia, a licence wipeout that turned a mid-tier market into a floor and accounts for most of the continental downside by volume. Rwanda is the only other double-digit percentage loss. Tunisia is a thin Maghreb fade. Everyone else in the 42-GEO set gained Index versus H1 2025.
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.
