National Lottery Board Appoints RSM Eastern Africa and QLOT Consulting as Transaction Advisors
The National Lottery Board has officially appointed a joint consortium consisting of RSM Eastern Africa and Sweden’s QLOT Consulting to serve as the Transaction Advisor for the launch of Kenya’s first National Lottery Operator.
This landmark announcement, made on the 20th of August 2026, marks the beginning of a comprehensive partnership that will guide the National Lottery Board from initial transaction structuring through to operator onboarding and final launch readiness.
The appointment follows a highly competitive, open international tender conducted under the strict guidelines of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act. Evaluated using the Quality and Cost Based Selection methodology, the joint bid of RSM Eastern Africa and QLOT Consulting emerged as the highest-ranked and most responsive.
This partnership brings together complementary strengths, with RSM Eastern Africa, a member of the global RSM network, delivering extensive local expertise and a proven track record of supporting Kenyan public sector institutions on complex transactions, governance, and institutional strengthening.
Meanwhile, QLOT Consulting, a Sweden-based specialist advisory firm and an Associate Member of the World Lottery Association, brings internationally benchmarked experience drawn from some of the world’s most sophisticated lottery procurements and strategies. Notably, the advisory assignment features a structured knowledge-transfer programme designed to ensure that deep operational and transactional expertise is permanently retained within the board.
Dr. Farida Karoney, EGH, Chairperson of the National Lottery Board, speaking on the appointment, said: “The appointment of a credible, multidisciplinary Transaction Advisor is a defining step in building a National Lottery that Kenyans can trust. It is a statement of intent that our National Lottery will be structured transparently, governed responsibly, and built to international best practice, with every shilling raised channelled toward good causes that uplift communities across the country.”
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While the selected National Lottery Operator will be contractually accountable to the Board, it will operate under a license within the broader regulatory framework of the Gambling Regulatory Authority.
With the Transaction Advisor officially on board, the NLB’s immediate focus shifts to designing a transparent and highly competitive procurement process to secure a world-class National Lottery Operator. The Board has indicated that timelines for this selection process will be published in due course, reiterating that they “will not trade rigour for speed” in establishing this historic institution.
Kenya’s gaming landscape is governed by a regulatory framework divided into two distinct and complementary mandates. The National Lottery Board, established as a State corporation under the National Lottery Act, is legally mandated to establish, oversee, and safeguard the integrity, transparency, and accountability of the National Lottery, contract its Operator, and administer the National Lottery Fund. In addition, the Gambling Regulatory Authority, established under the Gambling Control Act, is responsible for handling the broader licensing and regulation of all gaming activities across the country.
At its core, the primary focus of the National Lottery is not the games themselves but the positive national impact they enable. Once prize payouts and essential running costs are covered, all remaining proceeds are paid directly into the National Lottery Fund. By law, these funds are entirely dedicated to “good causes” that benefit communities across Kenya, including charitable and humanitarian initiatives, economic empowerment for women and young people, support for sports, national heritage, and the arts and creative economy, as well as health, education, emergency response, and transformative national projects.
In practice, this means directly backing grassroots sporting talent, helping youth commercialise their creative skills, and financing community-level projects. To maintain public trust, these funds will be disbursed according to published rules, distributed fairly across the country, audited independently, and reported openly to the public.
Rather than treating responsible gaming as an afterthought, the Board is ensuring it is structurally designed into the lottery’s foundation. The chosen Operator will be contractually obligated to implement strict player safeguards, including age verification systems, play and spend limits, self-exclusion options, disciplined advertising guidelines, and clear and transparent disclosure of game odds.
