Kenya’s perpetually uncertain gambling tax regime has taken yet another turn after a local judge blocked operators’ ability to withhold tax from winning bettors.

Earlier this month, Kenyan senior resident magistrate Dennis Kivuti issued an order blocking local sports betting operator SportPesa from collecting the government’s 20% tax on gambling winnings from Benson Irungu, a local bettor who’d filed a civil suit in 2014 protesting the tax.

On Tuesday, Business Daily reported that Kivuti had rejected a request by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to lift the order, which barred SportPesa – or any other lottery or betting licensee – from “making any deductions on the plaintiff or on any person’s winnings in a bet or game of chance pending hearing and determination” of Irungu’s suit.

The KRA had requested the lifting of Kivuti’s order by claiming that the agency was now “unable to collect approximately Sh2.7b (US$26.7m) per month …[meant] to finance sports, art, culture development and universal healthcare.”