What a BK licence is in Kenya and what the number on the list means

Every row of the regulator's list has three licence columns, headed BK, PG and PL. The page never spells the letters out, so their meaning has to be read from the Act and from what each column contains. You can see all three on this site's copy of the regulator's list.

What BK means on the GRA list

The column headed BK carries bookmaker licence numbers. On the list as published, 147 of the 187 rows have a number in it and 40 show Nil.

The numbers are seven digits with leading zeros. Row 1, for example, reads Shop & Deliver Limited, trading as Betika, with 0001117 under BK and 0001113 under PG.

Under section 36(3) of the Act, the holder of an online gambling licence has to show that licence on its own platform. When a betting site quotes a licence number, it should be the same digits as the BK cell on that company's row, and a number that sits only under PG or PL on the list does not show a bookmaker licence.

A BK number is the regulator's reference for one company's bookmaker licence. For a walk through the other columns on the same row, read how to read the GRA list of licensed bookmakers.

Which licence category the BK number belongs to

Section 28(2)(c) of the Gambling Control Act, 2025 names bookmaking among the activities the Authority licenses. Section 2 defines a bookmaker as a person who carries on the business of receiving and negotiating bets, leaving out licensed totalisator operators and staff of a licensed pool betting scheme. The definition is unpacked in what a bookmaker is under Kenyan law.

Section 58 then sets out four bookmaker licences. They are an on-the-course licence for authorized race meetings, an off-the-course licence for authorized betting premises, a licence covering both, and an online bookmakers licence.

A betting website needs the last of these. Section 67(1)(a) names the online bookmakers licence as one of three online gambling licences, the others being the online lottery and online casino licences, but the list does not say which of the four kinds each BK number covers.

How long a bookmaker licence lasts

Section 31(3) of the Act sets a default of thirty-six months from the date of issue, unless regulations prescribe another period. The Gambling Control (Licensing) Regulations, 2026, Legal Notice No. 111, do prescribe one, because regulation 22 sends the reader to their Fourth Schedule.

That schedule gives "Bookmaking" three years and "Online gambling" one year, for new licences and renewals alike. Because section 67 treats the online bookmakers licence as an online gambling licence, a betting website's licence points to the one-year row.

Regulation 24(2) asks for a renewal application at least ninety days before expiry, and regulation 24(3) has the Authority issue a successful renewal within thirty days. None of these dates is printed on the published list. The wider licensing picture is set out in how licensing works for betting sites in Kenya.

What a bookmaker licence costs

The Second Schedule to the Licensing Regulations sets the fees, and the Third Schedule sets the minimum gambling capital. The schedules print the amounts without a currency sign; the table reads them as Kenya shillings.

Renewal is priced lower than the first grant. For an online bookmaker the schedule sets a renewal fee of 10,000,000 against a first licence fee of 50,000,000, and lists the annual operating fee as a separate line.

Two more money rules sit in the Act itself. Section 40(1) and the Third Schedule to the Act require a security bond or bank guarantee of KES 100,000,000 for online gambling, and section 29(a) requires a licensee to be a company with at least thirty per cent of its shares held by Kenyan citizens.

All of these are paid or held by the operator. They are what it takes to obtain a bookmaker licence under the 2026 Regulations, not charges a bettor pays.

How BK differs from PG and PL

PG and PL are separate columns, each holding a different licence number. A company can hold one, two or all three, and on the published list 94 rows carry a BK number only while 4 rows carry numbers in all three columns.

The last column is a reading of the Act, not the regulator's label. Public gambling with table games and slot machines in section 28(2)(a) and public lotteries in section 28(2)(h) fit the letters PG and PL, but the page itself does not confirm it.

The difference matters when you check a sports betting site. A row with a PG number and Nil under BK shows no bookmaker licence, and 33 rows on the list look exactly like that.

What a BK number does not tell you

A BK number confirms one thing: the regulator recorded a bookmaker licence for that company for 2025/26. The expiry date, any suspension or revocation and the counties covered are all missing from it.

Section 39(1) of the Act requires the Authority's register of licences to hold all three of those details. The published page, last modified on 19 March 2026 according to the site's content record, also predates the 2026 Regulations, so it cannot show any licence issued under them.

To use the number in practice, set it beside the company name, trading name and domain shown on the site. How to check if a betting site is licensed takes you through that comparison.