Nigeria is known as the largest economy and most populous country in Africa with an estimated population of 206 million.
In a recent report, the Nigeria communication commission (NCC) announced that the population of internet users has reached 97 million and the millions of incredible passionate football fans in the country many of whom have access to the internet, sport betting has found its proverbial home.
A lot of betting companies has recognized the great potential in the country as a thriving market and are flooding in numbers to latch on and capture market shares to various degrees of success.
As far as Nigeria is concerned, sports betting has gained dominance. This is because, larger number of Nigerians actively participates in sports betting.
Generally, sporting betting involve punters predicting the outcome of matches and getting their bet to correspondence with the stakes. If the prediction are correct, the bet are rewarded with stipulated winnings. One thing for sure about sports betting is that you can either win or lose. Obviously that is the rule of gambling–winning or losing.
Sports betting has become a norm in our society today.
Even underaged engage in it and no one seems to care.
Brief history of sports betting in Nigeria.
Sports betting is an industry on its own which gained entrance into the Nigerian market in 2009 through Akin Alabi's Nairabet.
The sports betting industry grew so big in less than 10 football seasons.
Two factors helped Alabi to take his industry to the next level. They are;
Online strength and
Strong customer service.
In 2016, nairabet had the highest online users. One can rightly say that the founder of nairabet being Alabi akin was the pace setter for sports betting in Nigeria.
Dotun, the founder of 1960 bet, came up with his own betting company on the 21st December, 2010. Dotun gained his strength and ideas from Nairabet.
In order to run his company well, he also adopted two strategies. The strategies were; Company shop spread and a partnership portfolio for agents. These two strategies, particularly the latter, helped the industry to run effectively.
In October 2012, when bet9ja was officially launched, it drew ideas from 1960 bet and therefore created an agents/partnership portfolio. Bet9ja skyrocketed to the next level when one of her teams came up with the idea of targeting viewing centers and to support them with materials and training where needed.
Six months into the business, bet9ja was able to see how colorful the future would be for them, thereby introducing a new system in 2015.
The new system in the company consists of the following;
Introduction of a state- of -the art virtual dog race into the market through bet9ja company. To make the system more productive and interesting for punters, bet9ja introduced something new in the system. The new system features;
Instant income
Great sports animations
The record breaker; jackpot.
Introduction of virtual misconstrue: Virtual misconstrue became so successful that gamers often compare virtuals to sports betting. Infact, some analysts believe that it is more promising than sports betting.
From the brief history in view, one can see how sports betting gained influence here in Nigeria. The dominance of this industry in has had both positive and negative impacts.
General impacts of sports betting in Nigeria
The love for sports is on the high side, with millions of incredible passionate football fans in the country. Sports betting companies now engage citizens of Nigeria in sports through betting on it either as a way of building a network of sports fans and supporters of sports.
Citizens between the ages of 15-40, and sometimes the elderly also engage in sports betting. The major thing on the minds of gamblers is to generate quick cash as they gamble.
Statistics show that 70% of Nigerian youths engage in sports betting - what an influence!
Sports betting is no longer a game, but a lucrative business in Nigeria and beyond to the extent that the government has long ago imposed tax on the company and the industry is being regulated as a legitimate business.
A survey in 2015 estimated the value of sports betting industries at around 700 billion u.s dollars. Even bookmarkers believe that it is worth over 1 trillion u.s dollars.
If so be it, what impact has this industries on our society?
Quickly, we shall be taking a careful study of the positive and negative impacts of sports betting in Nigeria.
Positive impact of sports betting in Nigeria
1. Social impact
Sports betting can serve as entertainment to people. Sports generally can be entertaining. To some, it is more interesting and entertaining to watch live games, especially the ones you staked money on – This is their own way to prove their passion for sports.
2. Quick cash generation
As funny as this may sound, this game has been putting food on the table of some individuals in the country - and some has made millions from sport betting. For them, it is a quick and steady way of generating daily funds to sustain oneself in a society like yours where there is no job.
The game is so beneficial to the extent that as soon as you register on any online betting company, they offer you a welcome bonus. Playing or staking on virtual games is another way of generating quick cash.
3. Generations of revenue
When the lucrative nature of sports betting companies became obvious in Nigeria, they were made to start paying tax as of 2015 till date thereby generating revenue for the country.
In Nigeria today, research shows that over 90 million Nigerians actively participate in sports betting, and more than 50 betting sites operate in the country. Sports betting is experiencing a massive expansion in Nigeria, and is consequently resulting in a huge impact on the economy.
According to a report by top accounting and auditing firm, PwC:
Nigeria has become the second largest online gambling market in Africa, behind South Africa, with a Gross Gaming Revenue of $58 million in 2018.
The report projects that the GGR will rise by 16% over a five-year period.
4. Entrepreneurial and employment opportunity
Sport betting companies in Nigeria became a source of employment to some individuals. This was made possible at the inception of the partnership system of sports where one can become an agent for a Betting company.
Outlets of sports are being managed by individuals to stand as betting agents for sports companies. Not only that, the outlets employ youths who work as cashier's in such outlets.
Negative impacts of sports betting
Betting companies in Nigeria are like two edged swords. It is good and at the same time detrimental. Some of such negative impacts include;
1.It renders over 70% of our citizens hopeless
Statistics show that 70% of our youths are gamblers in Nigeria.
This chronic habit of gambling renders a lot of the youths hopeless and poor because they will forever wait to get rich from sports betting, and this will never happen. Instead, all the little resources they have are carelessly invested into sports gambling.
To be frank, the get rich quick that a lot of youths wish for, can only be a mere fantasy. In the actual sense, it will never come.
2. Chronic gambling
Continuous habit of gambling, is an attitude that renders the youth useless. A chronic gambler has no future savings.
No chronic gambler has a good future investment plan. All they do is to invest all their resources into gambling. A lot of the habitual gamblers go as far as selling off their personal properties just to get cash to gamble. The spirit of gambling can be a very bad incurable disease if care is not taken.
3. Violence and crime
This one is very common with individuals who get involved in illegal betting.
When two individuals stake money on the outcome of sports, the losing party finds it difficult to pay the money he promises to pay when the predictions is not on his favour.
In a bid to shy away from paying this money, he applies violence and fighting. This very attitude is a very common one among the Nigerian youths.
4. Depression, frustration/anger
When the high hopes of a gambler is not forthcoming, he tends to feel depressed, frustrated and eventually angry.
Sports betting can have a very bad psychological effect on a gambler. Sometimes a lot of them lose focus on chasing their dreams and continue to focus on their daily gambling routine.
5. Great ambition/creativity/innovations destroyer
Youths exert a lot of energy that would have been channeled to something meaningful and productive into sports betting.
The energy that would have been used for thinking out something good, is used for making calculative predictions that will eventually fail at the end.
Closing thoughts
The love of football, the existence of sports betting and the idea of making millions from it has taken sports to a new dimension. The possibility of making huge money with little stake has spread like wild fire into the minds of people and the youths, especially, have been engulfed in it to the detriment of their future.
Currently, no law or policy exist in the country to regulate sports betting activities in the country. And we have underaged engaging in gambling via local bet shops and franchises. With the unabated growth rate of sports betting the future of the young citizens is at stake.
A gambler makes a living built on hope. Many go into sports betting with the believe that they will hit millions some day. A fantasy sports betting companies in the country has taken advantage of. This would only end in depression, Frustration and anger, affecting their mental health. But many are blinded by the promise of millions and fail to see the negative impact of gambling.
Though sports betting comes with some positive social and economic effects, but when left unchecked, the negative impacts on the social, economic and social wellbeing of the citizens far outweighs the few pros.
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I love the balance from this lovely article and thoroughly well researched, sir. One thing struck me from everything you said, the new ones emerging in the industry took their idea from the existing ones. They studied the market, see how the competitor has been doing, improve on it and then introduce a differential package and that is smart business. Any business that wants to thrive must first study the other in that field, look for what they are not doing that they can do so as to make them appealing to the customers.
I don't have strength for gambling 🤣🤣😂. As you have said, most see it as a get rich scheme, wait their whole life on it and waste their time doing nothing else. It has rendered productive youths unproductive and I admit too, it is a good employer of labour. It has grown so big and more would still come to pitch their tent.