Ahmed Badawi, who chairs the House of Representatives' Communications and Information Technology Committee, told Al-Shorouk on May 26, 2026 that the government would submit amendments to Egypt's Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law (Law No. 175/2018) after Eid al-Adha. The changes would, for the first time, name electronic betting explicitly in statute and permit sentences reaching life imprisonment in the most serious cases involving organized criminal networks and large-scale fraud. The same package would toughen penalties for cyber extortion and criminalize the spreading of online "rumours" that Badawi said generate "a climate of despair" among the public.
The Case For the Crackdown
Start with what regulators are actually responding to. Egypt has banned gambling for its own citizens for decades, but that prohibition was written for physical casinos serving foreigners, not for Arabic-language betting apps marketed directly to Egyptian phones from offshore licenses. The gap is real: existing cybercrime provisions penalize illegal electronic applications generally but don't name gambling specifically, which has let operators argue the law doesn't clearly reach them. The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation say they had already blocked roughly 80% of identified online betting applications as of February 2026 — including 1xBet, pulled from Egyptian app stores in September 2024, and MelBet, targeted in early 2026. Cyber-enabled extortion — blackmail using leaked images, doctored photos, or threats tied to personal data — is a distinct and growing harm that a modernized statute can legitimately address. Closing a loophole that lets the organizers of large betting and extortion rings escape serious punishment is a defensible state interest, not manufactured pretext.
Where the Package Overshoots
The problem isn't that Egypt is regulating betting networks and extortion — it's how the amendments get there, and what's riding alongside them. A tiered penalty bill tabled by the committee's deputy chair, Martha Mahrous, in January 2025 already sketched a proportionate financial-crime framework: two to five years' imprisonment and fines of EGP 1–5 million for agents and de facto managers, up to six months and EGP 50,000–200,000 for payment facilitators, and two to five years with fines of EGP 5–10 million for platform operators and sponsors. That structure scales punishment to role and harm. Layering a blanket life-imprisonment ceiling on top of it, framed around "organized networks," risks becoming sentencing theater — a maximum that prosecutors reach for symbolically in a handful of cases while the tiered fines and app-store delisting campaign (already responsible for the 80% blocking rate) do the actual enforcement work. Egypt doesn't need a life sentence to deter betting-app operators when NTRA can simply make the app disappear from the market.
Badawi told parliament the amendments target "a climate of despair" caused by online rumours — a phrase with no statutory test for falsity, intent, or demonstrable harm.
The 'Rumours' Provision Isn't a Gap-Filler — It's a Second Track
The betting and extortion provisions respond to an identifiable enforcement gap. The rumours provision does not. Egypt's 2018 Media Regulation Law already gives the Supreme Council for Media Regulation authority to treat any personal website, blog, or social media account with 5,000 or more followers as a media outlet subject to government scrutiny, including the power to block accounts found to "publish or broadcast false news." Journalists are already prosecuted under "spreading false news" theories, often held in prolonged pretrial detention on vague charges — a pattern well-documented enough that Reporters Without Borders ranks Egypt 169th of 180 countries in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, among the lowest globally. Adding a second, cybercrime-law-based rumours offense doesn't close a gap in that framework; it multiplies the statutory hooks prosecutors can choose from when pursuing the same underlying speech. That's the opposite of the proportionate reform the betting provisions represent.
What a Narrower Bill Would Look Like
Three changes would make the amendments defensible on their own stated terms rather than as a bundle:
- Keep the tiered financial-penalty structure for betting and extortion — closer to Mahrous's original bill — rather than adding a blanket life-imprisonment ceiling that mostly duplicates deterrence NTRA's blocking campaign already provides.
- Give the rumours provision actual elements — falsity, knowledge of falsity, and demonstrable public harm — reviewable by a court on the merits, not left to the same administrative discretion that already governs account-blocking under the 2018 media law.
- Split the bill. Financial-crime provisions targeting organized betting and extortion networks should be debated, and can pass, on their own merits. A speech-restricting provision deserves separate scrutiny, not a ride on the back of a gambling crackdown with broad public support.
As of this writing, no draft amendments have reached the House Journal's agenda despite the Eid al-Adha target having passed. Egypt has time to decide whether this becomes two bills or one. The gambling and extortion provisions answer a real regulatory question. The rumours provision answers a different one — and conflating them makes it harder to evaluate either honestly.