How Gaming Tax Works for Tanzania Operators

The tax is on gross gaming revenue, not profit

Gross gaming revenue is the pool of money the operator keeps after paying winning bets: total stakes minus total winnings paid. It is not revenue after staff, rent, software, marketing or tax. A sportsbook that takes 1,000,000,000 TZS in stakes and pays out 850,000,000 TZS has 150,000,000 TZS of GGR, and the 25% tax is charged on that 150,000,000 TZS.

The distinction matters because the same headline rate produces very different answers depending on the base. A 25% tax on stakes would be 250,000,000 TZS on the same month; a 25% tax on GGR is 37,500,000 TZS. The Act uses GGR, and the returns require the operator to report stakes and winnings so the figure can be checked.

A negative GGR is not a tax credit. If winnings paid exceed stakes in a period, the GGR is nil and no gaming tax is due for that period; the loss is not carried forward as a credit against the next return.

The rates by type of operation

The Gaming Act sets the land-based casino and internet casino rates directly and puts the rest in the Second Schedule. The current rates are:

The GBT fee schedule adds a separate levy on some products: 2% of GGR for the national lottery, 5% for virtual games, and TZS 10,000 per machine per month for slots. Those are shown separately in the calculator because they are not the TRA gaming tax.

Returns, payment and the weekly casino cycle

A land-based casino returns and pays weekly, not later than Wednesday; if Wednesday is a public holiday, the payment moves to the working day before it. Every other operation returns and pays by the 7th of the following month. The return reports stakes, winnings paid and the tax due, and the operator must keep the records that support them.

The Sports Development Fund allocation is not a second payment. Five percent of the sports-betting tax is allocated to the fund from the 25% already collected, so the operator's liability is unchanged. The calculator shows the allocation as a memo line rather than adding it to the total.

The winnings tax has a different timetable: the operator remits it by the 7th of the following month and files the return by the 15th. Do not merge the two returns; they report different taxes and different taxpayers.

The winnings tax is a pass-through, not an operator cost

The operator also withholds the 15% gaming tax on players' net winnings. That tax belongs to the player: the operator deducts it when it pays the winning, holds it, and remits it to TRA. It is not revenue and it is not an expense of the gaming business, so adding it to the operator's tax bill overstates the cost.

The base is net winnings — the total payout minus the stake — and winnings that have borne the tax are exempt from income tax. The operator's obligation is to withhold correctly, remit on time and keep the certificate of payment.

The 5% stake excise was withdrawn

The 2026/27 budget proposed a 5% excise duty on the value of bets across sports betting, casinos, forty-machine slots and virtual games, with part of the proceeds allocated to GBT. It was withdrawn before the Finance Act 2026 was enacted. There is no stake excise in the current calculation, and an operator should not add one.

A worked example: Daniel's sportsbook in Dar es Salaam

A sportsbook takes 1,000,000,000 TZS in stakes and pays 850,000,000 TZS in winnings, giving GGR of 150,000,000 TZS. At 25% the gaming tax is 37,500,000 TZS. Of the tax, 1,875,000 TZS (5%) is allocated to the Sports Development Fund, not added to the rate. The winnings tax is withheld from players separately.

The effective rate on the money wagered is 3.75% (37,500,000 ÷ 1,000,000,000), even though the headline rate is 25%. That is the difference between taxing GGR and taxing stakes, and it is the number to use when comparing the tax burden with a market that charges a different base.

If Daniel also runs slot machines, those are taxed per machine per month rather than on GGR: TZS 100,000 per machine for TRA and TZS 10,000 per machine for the GBT levy. The licence fees for the premises are separate again.

Common mistakes

The errors that show up most often in gaming-tax workings:

• Applying the 25% rate to stakes rather than to GGR, which overstates the tax by a multiple of the operator's margin.
• Adding the winnings tax to the operator's own cost. It is withheld from players and remitted; it is not the operator's tax.
• Forgetting the GBT levy on the national lottery, virtual games and slots, or treating the 5% Sports Development Fund allocation as an extra 5 percentage points.
• Using the old 12% or 13% winnings rates for payments after 1 July 2026, when the general 15% applies.

Three charges, three different bases

A licensed operator faces three separate charges, and mixing them up is the commonest reporting error. Gaming tax on GGR is the operator's own tax on stakes minus winnings. The winnings tax is withheld from the player's net win and remitted on the player's behalf. GBT licence, application and levy fees are paid to the Gaming Board, not TRA, and some are a share of GGR or the promotional budget. A monthly return should reconcile each charge to its own base; a payment to one authority does not discharge the other.

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