Betika is at the centre of a fresh legal battle over the issuance and use of new gambling licences, with a High Court application seeking further restrictions on the betting company and demanding answers from the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Kenya (GRAK) over licences issued while complaints against betting operators remained unresolved.
The application, filed by Benedict Kabugi Ndungu in Judicial Review Application No. E350 of 2026 at the High Court in Nairobi’s Milimani Judicial Review Division, raises serious questions about the handling of Betika’s operating licence, the regulator’s response to complaints and the continued acceptance of bets and customer deposits following interim court orders issued on October 6, 2026.
The court papers accuse the regulator of failing to disclose important licensing developments and of allowing fresh licences to be put into operation despite orders intended to prevent new permissions from taking effect before the outstanding complaints were determined.
Betika, which operates under Shop and Deliver Limited, is identified in the application as an intended interested party. The applicant wants the court to extend its earlier orders, clarify that the restrictions cover the fresh licences issued to the company and compel the regulator to explain exactly what it approved, when the documents were signed and whether the licences were subsequently used to facilitate gambling.
At the heart of the dispute is bookmaker licence number GRAK/2026/BK337947, which the application identifies as having been signed on October 6, the same day the High Court issued interim orders restricting the regulator’s handling of fresh gambling licences.
The applicant argues that the regulator should not be allowed to issue or activate a new licence, then permit a betting company to continue operating while the complaints that prompted the court intervention remain unresolved.
The documents set out a detailed account of the disputed licensing process, the orders issued by the court, the subsequent operation of the betting websites and the relief sought by the applicant.
Betika’s October 6 Licence Becomes a Central Issue
One of the most important documents in the application is bookmaker licence GRAK/2026/BK337947, issued in the name of Shop and Deliver Limited, trading as Betika.
According to the applicant, the Gambling Regulatory Authority signed the licence on October 6, 2026. That date is significant because the High Court also issued interim orders on the same day to restrict the approval, issuance, activation and implementation of fresh gambling operating licences for the named betting operators.
The applicant is asking the court to establish the exact time the Betika licence was signed and to require the regulator to account for the steps taken after the orders were made.
In correspondence reproduced in the court papers, the applicant’s advocates specifically questioned the timing of the licence and demanded that the regulator disclose when it was executed. The letter argued that the timing mattered because Order No. 3 prohibited the implementation of fresh licences falling within its scope.
The concern raised in the application is not limited to the physical signing of a licence. It extends to whether the new document was allowed to become the authority under which Betika continued its betting operations.
The applicant’s position is that the court orders were designed to cover two possible situations. Where no new licence had been approved or issued, the regulator was restrained from granting or activating one. Where a fresh licence had already been issued or activated, the regulator was restrained from giving it effect or permitting it to be used until the complaints were determined.
That distinction is central to the dispute because the applicant argues that the regulator cannot avoid the restrictions simply because a licence has already been signed.
The motion therefore seeks an express clarification that the court’s October 6 orders apply to Betika’s licence GRAK/2026/BK337947, alongside other specified licences issued to the operators named in the proceedings.
If granted, the requested clarification would remove room for disagreement over whether the restrictions cover the new Betika licence. The court had not, in the material presented in the application, made a final determination of the disputed conduct.
Court Orders were Intended to Stop Fresh Licences from Taking Effect
The interim orders issued on October 6 form the foundation of the applicant’s case.
Under Order No. 2, the High Court restrained the Gambling Regulatory Authority, pending the inter partes hearing and determination of the application, from approving, issuing, activating or otherwise giving effect to a fresh gambling operating licence for Shop and Deliver Limited trading as Betika, Kareco Holdings Limited trading as Odibets, or Kwikbet Limited, where no such fresh licence had been approved, issued or activated by the relevant date.
Order No. 3 addressed the alternative situation in which a fresh licence had already been approved, issued or activated. It restrained the regulator from implementing the licence, giving it further effect, facilitating it or permitting it to be operated while the applicant’s complaints and relevant material remained to be considered and determined.
The orders were directed at the regulator and covered both the possible issuance of new licences and the use of licences that had already been issued.
The court also directed the parties to file their submissions within four days and fixed the matter for mention on October 13, 2026.
A penal notice attached to the orders warned that disobedience or non-observance could result in penal consequences for those who failed to comply.
The applicant now wants Orders Nos. 2 and 3 extended on the same terms and conditions until the complaints dated May 19, July 3 and August 31, 2026, are formally determined or until further orders of the court.
He also wants the court to clarify that Order No. 3 applies to the new licences specifically identified in the application, including Betika’s bookmaker licence.
The application argues that the restrictions must be understood in terms of what the licences allow their holders to do, rather than simply whether the documents exist or whether their numbers appear on a website.
In the applicant’s view, allowing a fresh licence to facilitate commercial gambling would undermine the purpose of the interim orders even if the regulator or operator took steps to alter how the licence was displayed publicly.
Applicant accuses regulator of withholding details about the new licences
The application makes a serious accusation against the Gambling Regulatory Authority over the disclosure of licensing documents before the October 6 court intervention.
It states that the regulator signed three licences on October 2, 2026. These were public gambling licence GRAK/2026/PG592241 for Shop and Deliver Limited trading as Betika, bookmaker licence GRAK/2026/BK955335 for Kareco Holdings Limited trading as Odibets, and public gambling licence GRAK/2026/PG608718 for Kareco Holdings Limited.
The applicant says the existence of those documents was not disclosed when the regulator’s Director-General swore an affidavit on October 5 stating that the complaints were still under assessment.
According to the application, the Director-General did not exhibit the licences in that affidavit. It further states that Paul Mutegi, in an affidavit filed on behalf of Shop and Deliver Limited on the same date, referred to the company having received a licence without providing its number or date.
The applicant argues that the omission was material because the documents had already been signed and their status was relevant to the proceedings.
The court papers describe the failure to disclose the October 2 licences as deliberate and misleading. They contend that the licences could not reasonably have been overlooked in the affidavits and court proceedings that followed.
The application also states that the same licensing developments were not disclosed on October 6 and October 7, while the regulator and the company relied on an earlier order from a separate case in Murang’a to support their position.
These are accusations made in the applicant’s court filings, not findings that should be treated as having already been proved. Nevertheless, they form a central part of the request for urgent judicial intervention and a sworn account from the regulator.
For Betika, the dispute is particularly important because the October 2 public gambling licence was issued in the company’s name before the court made the October 6 orders, while the separate bookmaker licence was signed on the day of those orders.
The applicant argues that the court must establish the full sequence of events and determine whether the restrictions were respected once they came into force.
Betika website remained open as applicant tested betting services
The application goes beyond the dates on the licences. It sets out observations the applicant says he made when visiting the websites of Betika, Odibets and Kwikbet on October 8, 9 and 11, 2026.
The applicant states that on October 8 he accessed the three websites and found that Odibets was displaying the new licence numbers GRAK/2026/BK955335 and GRAK/2026/PG608718. He says Betika and Kwikbet were still displaying their old licence numbers on that date.
He took a screenshot of the Odibets website, which was attached to the court papers as exhibit BK-013.
On October 9, he returned to the three websites and took screenshots of each. The documents are identified as exhibits BK-014, BK-015 and BK-016.
According to his affidavit, Odibets had reverted to displaying its old licence numbers by October 9. However, the applicant says all three websites remained open and continued to allow users to place bets.
He then revisited the websites on October 11. Screenshots attached as exhibits BK-017, BK-018 and BK-019 were presented to support his account that the betting platforms remained accessible.
The applicant argues that the continued availability of the websites matters because the court’s restrictions were intended to prevent fresh licences from being put into effect before the regulator determined the complaints.
His case is that the question cannot be reduced to whether a new licence number was visible on a website on a particular day. He wants the court to examine whether the services continued to operate under the new licensing arrangements despite the interim orders.
The application specifically argues that removing a licence number from a website does not, by itself, establish that the effect of the licence has been withdrawn.
That argument is particularly relevant to Betika because the applicant says the company’s website remained open for betting even as the legal dispute over the fresh licences continued.
The court is being asked to consider the actual status of the operations, rather than relying solely on the appearance of licence details on the operators’ websites.
The payments to Betika that forms part of the evidence
The applicant also included transaction receipts in an attempt to demonstrate that the betting platforms were accepting deposits after the October 6 orders.
According to the affidavit, he made three M-Pesa payments of KSh50 each on October 11, 2026, to the paybills associated with Odibets, Kwikbet and Betika.
The receipt relating to Betika records the following details:
– Recipient: Betika
– Date: October 11, 2026, at 9:28 pm
– Amount: KSh50
– Paybill number: 290290
– Transaction reference: UJBNN9KSGO
– Payment type: Pay Bill
The receipt identifies the payment as having been made to Betika. The applicant included it as exhibit BK-022 in the court papers.
The other receipts show a KSh50 payment to Odibets at 9:32 pm and another KSh50 payment to Kwikbet at 9:34 pm on the same date.
The applicant relies on these transactions alongside the website screenshots to argue that the platforms remained operational after the court issued its orders.
His affidavit states that the continued operation of the websites and the acceptance of M-Pesa deposits amounted to the fresh licences taking effect, which he argues was prohibited by Order No. 3.
The KSh50 Betika transaction is therefore more than a payment receipt in the applicant’s presentation of the case. It forms part of the evidence he has placed before the court to support his claim that the company’s betting services remained available while the licensing dispute was unresolved.
The application seeks to have the regulator account for whether the fresh licences were operationalised, deployed or used to facilitate gambling operations or payment collection from October 6 onwards.
Dispute over old and new licences puts Betika’s operating status in question
Another important issue raised in the application concerns the relationship between the operators’ previous licences and the new documents issued in October.
The applicant argues that a new licence for the same business replaces the old one as the authority to operate. In his view, the two cannot simply be treated as parallel permissions once a new licence has been issued.
For Betika, the court papers identify the previous public gambling licence as GRAK/2026/PG592241, dated October 2, 2026, and the bookmaker licence as GRAK/2026/BK337947, dated October 6, 2026. The application argues that the new licensing instruments must be considered within the restrictions imposed by the High Court.
It further states that Betika continued displaying its previous licence numbers even after the new documents had been issued.
The applicant contends that displaying an older licence number does not resolve the problem if the new licence has already overtaken it and cannot lawfully be put into effect while the court’s restrictions remain applicable.
He argues that the regulator should not be allowed to rely on the older licence details as a way of leaving an operator in business while the new licence is subject to court restrictions.
This is one of the most consequential arguments in the application because it places the question of Betika’s continued operation directly before the court.
If the applicant’s interpretation is accepted, the regulator would have to explain what authority it considers applicable to Betika’s operations during the period in dispute and how that position complies with the interim orders.
The applicant is asking the court to require the regulator to disclose the exact status of every relevant licence, including the dates of approval, signing, issuance and activation.
The court is also being asked to determine whether the new licences were put into effect and what steps, if any, were taken to stop them from being used after the October 6 orders.
Applicant invokes Section 30 of the Gambling Control Act
The dispute also centres on the Gambling Control Act, 2025, particularly Section 30, which the applicant says places mandatory duties on the regulator when considering gambling licence applications.
According to the court papers, the section requires the Authority to vet an application and hear the applicant before determining whether the applicant is fit and proper to hold a licence.
The applicant relies on this provision to argue that the regulator should not have completed the licensing process while the relevant complaints remained unresolved and the company maintained that it had not been served with them.
He argues that the issue is not whether Betika has already been found unfit to operate. Rather, his position is that the regulator must first complete the required assessment and make a proper determination before allowing the relevant licensing permissions to take effect.
The application refers to the Director-General’s October 5 affidavit, which reportedly stated that the complaints were still under assessment.
That statement is central to the applicant’s challenge because it raises the question of how fresh licences could be issued while the regulator maintained that the complaints had not yet been fully determined.
The applicant argues that the regulator must explain the steps it took to comply with its statutory duties and establish whether the required assessment had been completed before the new licences were issued.
The application also cites Section 98 of the Gambling Control Act, 2025, which it identifies as prohibiting gambling operations without a licence or permit.
The applicant’s argument is that where a fresh licence cannot take effect under the court’s orders and an earlier licence has been overtaken by the new grant, the regulator must clarify what lawful authority remains for the business to continue operating.
He has asked for the operations of Betika and Odibets to be stopped with immediate effect in the circumstances described in the application, alongside the withdrawal of the new Odibets licence numbers from use.
The court has not yet made a final finding on the applicant’s interpretation of these provisions in the material presented here. The application seeks judicial intervention to resolve the dispute and compel the regulator to account for its decisions.
Betika’s recusal application does not automatically suspend the orders
The court papers also address an application by Shop and Deliver Limited seeking the recusal of the judge handling the judicial review proceedings.
According to the applicant’s filings, Shop and Deliver Limited filed the recusal application on October 7, 2026. On October 8, the court certified it as urgent, directed that it be served within one day and fixed the matter for mention on October 13.
The applicant argues that the filing and certification of the recusal application did not remove the existing interim orders or automatically suspend their operation.
He also points out that Shop and Deliver Limited had not yet been admitted as an interested party in the main judicial review proceedings when the application was filed.
The applicant does not oppose the company’s joinder as an interested party, according to the court papers, but maintains that its status remains subject to a court order admitting it to the proceedings.
The application argues that the recusal request cannot, by itself, turn the company into a party or transfer the judicial review proceedings to another court.
It further states that Shop and Deliver Limited filed a notice of appeal against the October 6 orders on the same day it sought certified copies of the orders and typed proceedings.
The applicant’s position is that a notice of appeal does not automatically operate as a stay. He therefore maintains that the interim orders remained in force and that the High Court retained the power to consider their extension at the October 13 mention.
This argument matters to Betika because the company is challenging the proceedings at the same time that the applicant is asking the court to strengthen and extend the restrictions governing the regulator’s treatment of its fresh licence.
