Sports betting and other forms of gambling are becoming a phenom across Africa. Staking over which sports team might win is now a multi-million dollar industry. By 2022, the global gambling market could be worth $635 billion, according to new findings by Dublin-based Research and Markets. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest market, will profit, but not without a measure of blot.
Just like Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, Nigeria is witnessing a huge expansion in sports betting and gambling in general. Lotteries, poker, sports bets, slot machines, casino games, and online is the new trend. Many entrepreneurs and foreign companies are pocketing millions thanks to the boom.
In Suleja, a densely populated town in the suburb of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, the situation is dire. Many unemployed youths spend their few pence in the hope of “making big cash.” During the Premier League, Spanish La Liga and the Champions League, gambling becomes the order of the day.
“I just felt like betting and won on my first try. Since then, I have never stopped. There have been many losses and few wins,” said 19-year-old Baba Hassan.
Hassan, a native was lured into the act by his friends. Since then, he has indulged without his parent’s knowledge.
“I started watching football then my friends told me about the betting. So I started,” he added. “I help my father with work so he gives me small money then I come and bet.”
The combined size of the gambling industry in Kenya, Nigeria, and South African is projected to be worth $37 billion in 2019. In Nigeria alone, a 2017 study found that an estimated two million individuals engage in mobile-based sports betting.
The proliferation of betting is one of the unintended consequences of the growth in mobile money services which have taken off on the back of a drive for financial inclusion. Since 2014 mobile phone platforms have been fronted as the key to improving financial inclusion on the continent. But these eventualities were never what was envisaged. Yet, financial inclusion remains an action point because the majority of adult Africans are unbanked.
The allure of instant money
Who doesn’t want fast cash? Stan Johnson, a popular bet vendor in Gwarinpa, Abuja, has lost about N2m during a six-year gambling period. He bets because he wants to recover what he has lost, sometimes borrowing money or even charging his clients before doing a job.
A study from 2016 estimated that 78% of university students were problem gamblers. Figures from the gambling regulator show that gross gambling revenue for the 2016/2017 financial year was $198m (N59.4b) – equivalent to a huge chunk of the annual budget.
However, the allure of instant money has come at a cost. In 2016, a university student hanged himself after losing about N200K on a bet. Since then, more than five suicides and cases of bankruptcy, domestic violence and evictions have been reported.
Young gamblers
Supporters of mobile-based sports betting in Nigeria will tell you how good it’s been for the continent. What they, however, don’t discuss is the devastating effect betting has on many of those who participate, more than half of whom are below the age of 35. It’s easy to see how mobile-based sports betting is so attractive to young people given bets of just N100 can deliver a win of N50,000 or even more.
This is particularly problematic in Africa because the continent has the youngest population in the world. Over 420 million Africans are aged between 15 and 35. On top of this, unemployment is extremely high. About 35% of Africa’s young people are unemployed. Only one out of six African youths are in gainful wage employment.
These unemployed and underemployed youths are easily stimulated by sports which is a major craze on the continent. And betting appears to offer a way out of poverty. In Nigeria, 60 million people aged between 18 and 40 spend up to N150 million on sports betting daily.
Consequences of mobile-based betting
A study showed that most people who engaged in mobile-based betting did despite the inherent dangers.
One of the risks is that low-earning young people often borrow money for betting. This places them in a cycle of perpetual debt. Rising debt levels compound an already terrible situation – 40% of people in Africa live on less than $1.90 a day.
Despite the crushing implications of sports betting through mobile phone platforms, the practice has become an intolerable addiction across the continent. This is worrying given that betting has been recognized as a gambling disorder.
A game of addiction
It only costs N100 to bet which means gambling is no longer a preserve for the rich. Many young people like Hassan have been struggling to stop the urge to bet.
“That’s the challenge I am facing. Sometimes, I want to stop even my mother wants me to stop but I can’t. I can’t stop like this, I can’t stop. I am still poor,” he said.
Africa’s growing smartphone market has helped increase sports betting on the continent. Hassan warned other young people not to start gaming to avoid getting hooked.
“Sometimes when am coming to watch football then the thing [betting] will attract me, then I will start playing,” he said.
Except for South Africa which is a more established gambling market, betting laws in most other African countries are quite recent, and regulation is still poor.
Easy come, easy go
Without a doubt, gambling comes with great risks and with some of these risks comes losses. Bearing in mind always is the fact that betting relies on uncertainties and one must be able to handle whatever comes with making such a decision.
Football betting for some has been more of a blessing in disguise to them, a big win after several trials. They believe the pain and losses of yesterday are worth it.
Clinton, 27, an unemployed Nigerian youth with a Masters degree who resides in Lagos, experienced his big win when he won N6m after staking a thousand. For Clinton, betting was just the ultimate.
When asked what he used the money for he said, “I took my guys out for a treat, sent part of the money to my folks at home and used the rest to buy stuff I need at home”.
“It was an amazing experience,” he tells the KAFTANPost. “It felt like a dream until I checked multiple times and saw the money in my account. One of the best times of my life so far,” he added.
Due to the easy-fast money-making nature of sports betting, proceeds from such activity are often squandered without any form of accountability or thought to invest the proceeds into something substantial.
Sports’ betting serves as a source of income for most people that participate and provides an extended source of entertainment to sports lovers, despite the anxiety that comes with it. Channelled appropriately, it can promote domestic sports.
As an individual seeking to be a sports’ betting operator in the betting industry, it is a lucrative business to tap into with wonderful investment opportunities that comes with it. However, caution needs to be taken by vulnerable Nigerians who are in danger of gambling addiction.
Considering the level of the industry’s growth in Nigeria, there is a need for the proper regulation of the industry as policies of checks and balances have to be in place.
