About this app
How to play Thunder Screech
While the intention is to protect vulnerable households and ensure welfare is spent on essential needs, proposed measures are being complicated by legal, technical and privacy obstacles.
Harris Tsangarides, executive director of the Gaming & Casino Supervision Commission, said his department had noticed spikes in gambling activity coinciding with GMI payment dates, prompting the regulator to consider “technical solution” to cross-reference GMI beneficiary lists with casino membership records.
An issue raised by Giannis Vasiliadis, director of WBAS, was the limited access to recipients’ banking information. This limited data can hint at suspicious activity but cannot conclusively verify gambling transactions.
About Thunder Screech
Egypt’s gambling rules were written around physical venues. Law 8 of 2022 provides that “gambling games may not be practised in establishments except by non-Egyptians”. No licensing framework exists for online betting.
In October 2024 the then-prosecutor general ordered the freezing of e-wallets and the suspension of mobile lines used by betting agents. Separately, in February this year, officials said regulators were working with the telecoms authority and the media council towards blocking about 80% of betting applications by the end of that month.
Ahmed Badawi, who chairs the House communications committee, said in May that the government would amend the anti-cybercrime law to name online betting explicitly. Life imprisonment was discussed for the gravest offences. No bill number or text has been published.
How to play Thunder Screech
Premier League clubs are prohibited from any form of gambling front-of-shirt sponsor, after a voluntary ban came in from the start of the 2026-27 campaign.
But Entain found 11 of the current 20 Premier League clubs still hold sponsorship or advertising arrangements with operators that don’t hold a UK licence, up from the government’s estimate of eight.
The deals include sleeve sponsorships, stadium branding and training kits.
