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About The Koi Gate
SmartSoft has joined the African iGaming Alliance (AiA) as a Gold Supplier Member in a strategic partnership focused on its continued development of African gambling.
In an announcement on Tuesday, the parties said the agreement was “focused on supporting the continued development of sustainable, responsible and commercially viable regulated gambling markets across Africa”.
SmartSoft maintains an established and growing presence in Africa, having also co-hosted the iGB L!VE Africa Summit in July.
What is The Koi Gate?
Among those pushing for the increased age limit were the SGP’s Diederik van Dijk and the CDA’s Tijs van den Brink.
Van Bruggen said the matter would be raised in subsequent progress reports.
Beyond raising the age limit to 21, Van Dijk called for a complete reversal of the Netherlands’ 2021 online gambling legalisation, which helped establish a reasonably mature legal gambling market for the sector, until tighter restrictions for players, and increased taxes, struck licensed operators in recent years.
About The Koi Gate
In January 2024, before locally licensed online operators were active, the Authority said it had recorded about 510,000 monthly cases of Botswanans participating in illegal online gambling.
Sunbet Botswana launched its online sports-betting platform in February 2025 and reported a 4,700% increase in sign-ups during its first month. As this was an operator-reported figure, the company did not publicly disclose the comparison baseline or absolute number of registrations.
The Authority said licensed operators accepted P150 million in wagers in March 2025, paid P135 million in winnings and generated P15 million in gross gambling revenue. It also estimated that only about 40% of Botswana’s estimated 550,000 active bettors were using licensed local operators, leaving a substantial share of demand with unregulated platforms.
