The new legal loophole that enables your in-laws and employers to ban your bets
By: Kevin Titus Wamae
The Gambling Control (Conduct of Gambling Operations) Regulations 2026, gazzeted on 30th June 2026 introduces a novel and potentially far-reaching mechanism. Under regulation 78, a “family member or other interested party” may apply to the Gambling Regulatory Authority(the Authority) to have a gambler excluded from gambling where the gambler’s conduct has caused or is likely to cause serious financial hardship, threatens family welfare, or where the gambler lacks the capacity to make informed decisions because of gambling-related harm.
At first glance, the provision appears sensible. Gambling addiction rarely harms only the gambler; spouses, children, parents and even employers often bear the financial and emotional consequences. However, beneath this well-intentioned provision lies a deceptively simple question: Who exactly is “family” and “interested party”? Surprisingly, the Act does not say.
Does “family” mean only a spouse, parent and child? Does it extend to a brother or sister? What about a cousin who has watched you squander the family inheritance? Or perhaps the person with the strongest opinions at every family gathering, your mother-in-law? Could she march into the Authority armed with bank or m-pesa statements and WhatsApp screenshots demanding that your betting account be shut down?
The phrase “other interested party” is equally intriguing. It is potentially even wider than “family.” Could it include a fiancée? A business partner? A landlord? A church elder? An employer whose employee continually misses work after late-night betting? Without statutory guidance, almost anyone capable of demonstrating a legitimate interest in the gambler’s welfare or the consequences of the gambling might argue for standing before the Authority.
The threshold appears deliberately broad, and proving those grounds would almost inevitably require access to highly personal information bank statements, mobile money records, loan histories, medical reports, or intimate details of family life, raising the equally uncomfortable question of whether the path to protecting a gambler may first require intruding into the gambler’s privacy.
Ultimately, Parliament has left the Authority to answer a rather uncomfortable question: Can your mother-in-law or employer legally have you banned from betting? On a plain reading of the Bill, it is not as far-fetched as it sounds. If they can persuade the Authority that they qualify as a “family member” or an “interested party” and produces evidence that your gambling has jeopardized your financial status, your family’s welfare or your capacity to make rational decisions, what, exactly, prevents their application from succeeding? Nothing.
