East African state legalises online gambling

The president of Mozambique, an independent African state on the east coast of the continent, has signed into law revisions to its gambling legislation that legalise online gambling, along with new land measures to permit slot machines in non-casino areas and permission for casinos to be built anywhere in the country, the state news agency AIM in Maputo reports.
President Armando Guebuza signed the new law, which includes provisions cutting the minimum company investment required from $15 million to $8 million, this week.
The move came as something of a surprise to the industry, as Mozambique’s approach to Internet gambling has received nowhere near the attention that its larger and more influential neighbour South Africa has been given.
The South Africans, who have a more sophisticated financial and technical infrastructure, have been researching the legalisation of online gambling and the development of an online gambling licensing jurisdiction for literally years , with the much-delayed project apparently bedevilled by political debate, fact-finding missions and generally slow official progress.