What happens to your bet when a betting site or app goes down
Kenyan law does not set a special rule for outages. What decides your bet is whether the operator accepted it, which means debiting your stake from your account, and the published rules it must follow when settling. If the record is unclear, the dispute route starts with the operator's customer care centre.
The short answer
The Gambling Control Act, 2025 and the 2026 conduct regulations say nothing specific about a site or app going offline. No provision voids open bets, freezes them or refunds them automatically. What they do provide is a set of general duties about accounts, records, published rules and complaints, and those duties decide most outage cases.
This guide separates what the texts say from what they leave to each operator's terms. For the record-keeping side, see how a licensed operator must record your deposits and withdrawals.
Step one: was the bet accepted?
Everything starts with acceptance. Under section 73(3) of the Act, a licensee may accept a wager only if your account holds enough funds to cover it and you have approved those funds. In practice, acceptance is the moment the operator's system debits the stake and records the bet against your account.
An outage can leave you in one of three positions: the bet is on your account and the stake is debited, the stake is debited but no bet appears, or neither has happened. A confirmation screen that never loaded does not tell you which one applies. Your account history, once the service returns, is the record that counts.
What the texts say in each situation
| Situation | What the law says | What it leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| Bet and stake both recorded before the outage | Regulation 23(2): terms of an accepted bet cannot be altered except as permitted by law or approved rules. Regulation 24(1): winning bets are settled promptly under the published rules. | What counts as a published rule for an event affected by an outage, such as a match played while the site was offline. |
| Stake debited, no bet on the account | Section 75: the operator may debit only a wager you made or an amount you directed for a wager. | How quickly the operator must reverse an unmatched debit. |
| No debit and no bet | Nothing was accepted, so there is no wager to settle. | Whether the operator treats a failed attempt in any particular way. |
| Bet won while the platform was down | Section 70(1): a monetary prize is credited to the player's account within two days. | When the clock starts if settlement itself was delayed by the outage. |
| Withdrawal requested during the outage | Section 75(b): funds are remitted at your request. Regulation 104: non-payment of winnings within 14 days attracts a penalty and interest on the outstanding amount. | Whether a platform outage pauses those periods. |
The middle column is the law as read for this guide. The right column is where the operator's terms and conditions, and any ruling by the Authority, would fill the gap.
The rules your bet is held to
Regulation 22 requires a bookmaker's terms and conditions to be in simple language, to state every significant condition that may affect a punter's decision, and to stay readily accessible for the duration of play. Regulation 23(1) adds that odds, rules and terms applicable to each bet must be clearly displayed. Changes to the terms need the Authority's approval under regulation 22(3) and (6).
These are the documents that would answer questions such as what happens to a bet when an event result cannot be fed into the system. If the terms are silent on outages, regulation 22(2)(b) is the relevant test: significant conditions must be stated.
What an operator's system must be able to do
Online platforms are approved against technical standards. Regulation 41 requires accuracy and security in recording all transactions and a secure, encrypted and tamper evident audit log of system and user activities. Regulation 43 requires an applicant to demonstrate adequate redundancy and capacity for continuous operation, and a tested business continuity plan to minimise service disruption.
Regulation 50(3) goes further: a licensee must keep an incident response report that registers breaches, downtime or fraudulent digital activity. The licensing regulations also contain an application form declaration that the applicant will report any material incident, such as a security breach, major fault or fraud, to the GRA within 24 hours of discovery. These are duties owed to the regulator. None of the texts read for this guide gives a player a right to see the report.
Keeping your own record
The audit log belongs to the operator, so your own evidence matters if numbers differ later. Note the time of the attempt, the event and amount, and any error message. Keep the mobile money confirmation SMS for the stake, because it shows when money left your wallet even if the app showed nothing. For debits that do not appear in the app, see what to do when an M-Pesa deposit is deducted but not credited.
Illustrative example: a mobile money statement shows KES 500 sent to an operator's paybill at 20:14, the app shows an error at 20:15, and the account history later shows a credit of KES 500 but no bet. The money reached the account, and section 73(2) requires funds received to be credited to it. Since no wager was accepted, the KES 500 should remain as account balance. The account history is the document to raise with customer care.
If the record does not match
The route is set by law in layers. First, the customer care centre: regulation 9 says it exists to resolve complaints and disputes before they are reported to the Authority, and to refer unresolved matters to the Authority for determination. Regulation 103 also requires an internal dispute resolution mechanism approved by the Authority.
Second, the Tribunal. Section 80 of the Act says a party to a dispute arising out of an online gambling activity may appeal to the Tribunal within fourteen days from the date of the dispute. The Act does not define the date of the dispute further in the text read here, so the cautious reading is to count from the day the disagreement arose and not from the operator's final reply. Regulation 24(2) separately says disputes about bet settlement follow the dispute procedures the Authority approves.
When a longer outage raises licence questions
A single outage does not by itself end an operator's authorisation. Regulation 51 lists grounds on which the Authority may suspend or revoke an online platform authorisation, including failure to take proper measures to secure the platform and failing a security and integrity test. If that happens, balance questions are covered in what happens to betting accounts when a licence is suspended.
Section 76(2) protects balances in the meantime: money in a player's account, including money in transit or being cleared, must at any time be at least equal to the total credited to players' accounts held by the licensee. For how the Authority sees operator activity, read how the gambling control system works.
18+. Gambling is addictive. Play responsibly. If a loss or a dispute is causing distress, see responsible gambling and help lines.
Questions and answers
Does the law say a bet is void if the site crashes?
The Act and the conduct regulations read for this guide contain no rule that voids bets during an outage. Whether a bet stands depends on whether it was accepted and on the operator's published rules, which regulation 23 and regulation 24 require to be displayed and followed.
Can an operator keep my stake if the bet was never confirmed?
Section 75 of the Act allows an operator to debit only a wager you made or an amount you directed for a wager. A debit with no bet on your account is a record mismatch that you can raise with the customer care centre, and with the Authority if it is not resolved.
Is an operator allowed to change the terms of my bet after it is accepted?
Regulation 23(2) says no licensee shall alter the terms of a bet after it has been accepted, except as permitted by law or approved rules.
Must an operator tell the regulator when its platform goes down?
Regulation 50(3) requires a licensee to keep an incident response report that registers breaches, downtime or fraudulent digital activity. The texts read for this guide do not say that the report is shown to players, or give a deadline for reporting an outage to the Authority.
How long do I have to take a dispute to the Tribunal?
Section 80 of the Act lets a party to an online gambling dispute appeal to the Tribunal within fourteen days from the date of the dispute.
Where do I complain first?
Regulation 9 of the conduct regulations requires every licensee to run a customer care centre that handles complaints and disputes, and to refer unresolved matters to the Authority for determination.
Sources
- Gambling Control Act, 2025 (No. 14 of 2025), ss.69, 70, 73, 75, 76, 80, accessed 2026-10-19
- Gambling Control (Conduct of Gambling Operations) Regulations, 2026 (L.N. 112), rr.9, 22, 23, 24, 41, 43, 45, 50, 51, 103, 104, accessed 2026-10-19
- Gambling Control (Licensing) Regulations, 2026 (L.N. 111), application form declarations, accessed 2026-10-19