Sicbo

What is Sicbo?

In the Ministry of Finance’s view, this ended “any institutional ambiguity” over who should oversee the DRC’s gambling industry.

“The Ministry of Finance reaffirms its determination to drive the reform of the gambling and games of chance sector in accordance with government directives, while upholding legal certainty for operators, transparency in activities and the protection of the Public Treasury’s interests,” said the press release, signed by Alain Malata Kafunda, the chief of staff to the DRC minister of finance.

The press release also warned operators against complying with any payment requests from departments that aren’t legally authorised to do so.

What is Sicbo?

“If the tax burden alone makes it impossible to establish the occupation of slot machine operators as the economic basis of one’s livelihood within the municipality,” the ruling said. 

Braun also argued that the public had been excluded from the preparatory finance committee meeting without justification.

But the court said that point did not affect the validity of the by-law, adding that it saw no evidence of a tax that would choke businesses. 

How to play Sicbo

Compared to the 2021 licensing round, the KSA adopted a more granular and stringent approach to its licence renewal process. This was expected following new policy rules set out by the regulator in September 2025.

One such rule was for licensees that had faced compliance enforcement during the five years operating in the Netherlands.

At the time KSA announced: “Providers that made mistakes in the past five years must explain during the application process how they have learned from previous mistakes and how they intend to prevent recurrence. If we find this explanation insufficient, the permit may be denied or additional conditions and restrictions may be imposed.”