In terms of legal betting opportunities, Nigeria may be the most developed country in Africa. Gambling has been legal in this country for almost 30 years and sportsbooks like Paripesa Nigeria can operate freely. But as in almost every country where betting is legal, the debate continues here: does gambling generate revenue for the government as expected, or does it just create problem gamblers? Has Nigeria really achieved what it was aiming for with legal betting? Below, we will try to answer these questions.
Let’s start with the legal background
Nigeria is one of the most populated countries in Africa with a population of 185 million and gambling has been a habit from the time it was a British colony. The British spread their own sports, especially horse racing, in almost every country they occupied, and they began to bet on all of them: local people began to do the same over time. Gambling was already common in Nigeria; it just wasn’t regulated.
At the end of the 1990s, gambling was made almost completely legal with the amendments to the Criminal Code Act. The government announced that it did this to regulate the sector and collect taxes. As a matter of fact, a 20% tax rate was determined for gambling profits. Since then, online and offline gambling has been legally available to Nigerian citizens and, compared to other countries, operators have to deal with much less bureaucratic details. The most popular types of gambling in Nigeria are online betting, slot machines, and lottery, respectively. The number of gamblers is quite large and continues to increase, as we will mention below.
Yes, betting is very popular in Nigeria
We can say that the government has at least fully achieved its tax collection goal, or even exceeded expectations. Gambling is very popular in Nigeria and online sports betting is at the top of the list. A study from 2021 shows that 36% of the population over the age of 18 have placed a bet at least once, while 53% of this group try their luck every day. This means that roughly 60,000,000 Nigerians can be identified as “bettors”. The population of many European countries is less than this.
Nigerian bettors spend an average of ₦3,000 per day on sports betting. Considering that the minimum wage in the country is ₦30,000, this is quite a high figure. Mobile applications are the main way of placing a bet. This is especially common among young bettors: almost everyone in the country has a smartphone, and it is the main device used for sports betting. This is because Nigeria has done its digital transformation with smartphones, not computers. PC and laptop usage is very low in the country, but smartphones are extremely common.
In some regions, a much larger portion of the population is interested in sports betting. For example, in the South-West and South-South regions, this rate can go up to 91%. The majority of bettors are between the ages of 18-35, as the unemployment rate among this group is very high. Research shows that the reasons to bet are:
- Make money fast (30%)
- Unemployment (21%)
- Greed (15%)
To sum up, yes, sports betting and gambling, in general, are extremely popular in Nigeria. Despite the high tax rates, this popularity is not diminishing, and the government is able to generate the revenue it expects.
Banning something is never a good idea
Those who oppose legal gambling use the pretext that it “badly affects the young population”. Unfortunately, this is an argument you can see in almost every country, and it never reflects the truth. Because when gambling is banned, it’s not something that goes away: it goes underground, becomes uncontrollable, and turns into a much bigger problem. Another fact revealed by the research we mentioned above is that 58.3% of the young population has free access to an illegal gambling den. If gambling is banned again, this figure will only increase.
Therefore, gambling needs to be regulated more, not banned. Because although the Nigerian government has obtained tax revenue beyond expectations, it has not yet taken steps for additional regulation. In this context:
- There is no institution in the country to enforce responsible gambling rules. There is also no association to help problem gamblers. However, some of the tax revenue from legal gambling had to be reserved for them: this is the case in Western countries.
- The fact that the licensing process does not contain bureaucratic details may seem like an advantage, but it also causes a lack of control. Obtaining a licence is very easy and almost no audits are carried out afterward.
The sports betting industry in Nigeria needs more regulation and when that happens, the number of illegal dens will decrease. An uncontrolled industry will only cause problems and banning something in demand will only make it uncontrollable: these two facts should never be forgotten.
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