Mauritius budget scraps hotel casino licences and expands casino tax monitoring

Mauritius is retiring an entire gambling licence category, widening another and extending state fiscal surveillance onto the casino floor.

Under the 2026/27 budget, hotel casino licensing will be repealed altogether. Meanwhile the digital games regime that was introduced in 2025 will be opened to limited payout machine operators and every casino and Gaming House server will be required to connect to the Mauritius Revenue Authority’s Central Electronic Monitoring System (CEMS).

This marks one of the biggest structural changes to the island’s gambling framework since the Gambling Regulatory Authority Act was consolidated in 2007.

Reforms follow previous efforts to strengthen Mauritius gambling regulator

Moving the Finance Bill three weeks later, the prime minister told the chamber that all betting terminals will have to be registered with the Director General of the Mauritius Revenue Authority and must be connected with the Central Electronic Monitoring System. The 2026/27 measures extend that requirement to casinos and Gaming Houses. 

The reforms follow previous government efforts to strengthen confidence in the Gambling Regulatory Authority.

Moving the last major gambling reform in the Assembly on 4 July 2025, Prime Minister and Finance Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam told MPs the government had “undertaken to restore public confidence in the Gambling Regulatory Authority (GRA), particularly in regard to its oversight of the horse racing industry”, and would ensure “the GRA operates as a trustworthy regulator of the gaming and betting industry”. 

The full parliamentary debate on the 2026/27 gambling reforms will begin once the Finance Bill is introduced in the National Assembly. Cabinet confirmed on 3 July 2026 that an economic committee, chaired by the prime minister, would finalise the legislation, with its first meeting taking place on 8 July. 

Hotel casino licence retired 

Ramgoolam presented the budget on 19 June, without mentioning gambling in his budget speech. The substance sits in Section 44 of the budget annex, which contains more than two dozen amendments to the Gambling Regulatory Authority Act. 

The annex directs that the definitions of “hotel casino”, “hotel casino games”, “hotel casino gaming machine” and “hotel casino operator” be deleted “as these will no longer be authorised activities”, with the provisions governing their licensing and operation repealed. 

The dedicated hotel casino regime in the current Act – which allowed a hotel to operate a casino under a bespoke licence – will also disappear. Hotel-based casino operations will in future require an ordinary casino licence where permitted under the revised framework. 

Digital games regime extended 

Mauritius already licenses digital gaming. Both casino operators and gaming house operators have been eligible to hold digital gaming licences under amendments made to the Gambling Regulatory Authority Act in 2025. 

The 2026/27 Budget Annex expands that regime rather than recreating it. Limited payout machine operators are being added as a third eligible category, while a statutory definition of “digital games” will be inserted into the Act for the first time.

Also, every platform will have to be certified by an accredited independent gaming laboratory before it can go live. 

CEMS extends onto the casino floor 

The most significant operational change is the extension of the Central Electronic Monitoring System, operated by the Mauritius Revenue Authority. The annex requires the servers and terminals of betting operators to be connected to the GRA’s server and, separately, requires the servers of casino and Gaming House licensees to connect directly to the MRA’s CEMS. 

Alongside the CEMS extension, the annex creates a Responsible Gambling and Communications Division and a Finance and Procurement Division within the GRA.

Bookmakers will be permitted up to five betting terminals within approved premises, up from three, with one reserved exclusively for payouts. Horse race betting tax will also be calculated on stakes net of winnings paid out rather than on gross stakes. 

The measures build on the Anti-Money Laundering, Combatting the Financing of Terrorism and Countering Proliferation Financing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill passed by the Assembly in April 2026.

Moving that bill on 31 March, Financial Services Minister Jyoti Jeetun told the chamber that “the Gambling Regulatory Authority Act, the Income Tax Act and the Mauritius Revenue Authority Act are being amended to require beneficial ownership details at licence applicant stage for gambling operators, introduce cash transaction limits and enhance fiscal investigation powers with carefully circumscribed search and seizure provisions and appropriate safeguards”. 

Once the Finance Bill and the Economic and Financial Measures (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2026 complete the legislative process, Mauritius will have significantly expanded both fiscal oversight and regulatory supervision of its gambling sector through licensing reform, enhanced tax monitoring and strengthened compliance requirements. 

In January, local news reports claimed the horse racing sector in Mauritius was being poorly regulated by the newly created Horse Racing Integrity Division. But the regulator disputed the anonymous claim.