One judgment, thirty-six rulebooks: the compliance bill facing Nigeria’s digital gaming operators

On 22 November 2024, a seven-member panel of the Supreme Court struck down the National Lottery Act 2005. Twenty months on, the result is not deregulation but multiplication: operators that once relied on a single federal licence now negotiate a separate regime in every state where they accept a stake. For businesses built on software rather than premises, most of that cost has landed in an unexpected place — the back office.
What the court actually decided
In Attorney-General of Lagos State & Ors v Attorney-General of the Federation (SC/1/2008), the court held unanimously that lotteries and games of chance appear nowhere on the 68-item Exclusive Legislative List, nor on the Concurr...