Forget Sermons, Sports Betting is the New Religion in Nigeria

Osinachi Anyanwu
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

On February 13, 2000, a Nation stood still.

It was a Sunday, and the early morning mass was filled with football fans from all over the district. Close to the end of the mass, our priest was quick to point out that we all came to mass so early, so as to not miss the game later that afternoon. He was so impressed that we soon knelt down to offer a quick prayer for the Nigerian team.

This match, the final of the 2000 African Cup of Nations was being played in our own National Stadium in Lagos — the boys had made us proud by going all the way to the finals to meet Cameroon.

By the 31st minute, we were already two goals down courtesy of goals from Samuel Eto and Patrick Mboma. Lagos was silent, Literally silent. However, we had faith which was soon repaid when Chukwu scored Nigeria’s first goal two minutes into the first half stoppage time. And two minutes after the start of the second half Okocha launched a rocket to put Nigeria level with the Cameroonians.

The streets came alive once more, the stadium grounds vibrated as if the walls would cave in, people’s joy echoed to the heavens, and it felt like God was listening. All we needed was just one more goal to clinch the title but it never came, and Nigeria lost on Penalties to Cameroon.

NEPA (National Electric Power Authority) had promised the entire country a stable power supply for the duration of the match and duly fulfilled their promise. Such was the love we had for our National team.!

We never recovered from that defeat, and went on to finish third place for the next three Nations Cups in 2002, 2004, and 2006.

While we had lost some love for the Nigerian Super Eagles, we still loved our football stars and followed their careers to their European clubs until all we spoke about was European football. EPL stole our hearts fastest via early recruits as JayJay Okocha, Kanu Nwankwo, Yakubu Ayigbeni, John Utaka, Daniel Amokachi, Joseph Yobo and Celestine Babayaro. The other leagues followed suit in the years to come.

It is safe to assume that 80% of Nigerians love football, and 98% of those football lovers support a particular European club. You are either Team Man Utd, or Team Chelsea, or Team Barca or Team Arsenal (hehehehe) or Team something; and besides Religious issues, there is no other topic that can raise so much passion and argument among young Nigerians as Soccer.

What is happening now is that some people threw in lots of money, established betting sites, secured celebrity endorsements, made vague promises of returning quick millions and carefully nurtured our hobby to passion, to obsession, and then to a religion.

In the early times, the church relied on Missionaries and Inquisitors to spread the gospel of Christ and persecute heretics; Now Betting companies rely on celebrities and local Influencers to spread the tenets of their new religion and to eliminate doubts.

Nigerian celebrities as betting ambassadors
Nigerian celebrities as betting ambassadors

And just as those Missionaries and Inquisitors were motivated by doing God’s work, these ambassadors are motivated by doing honest work. After all, becoming a brand ambassador signifies that your celebrity status has reached a certain level of Influence. So who are we to blame them?

According to this report by the Multinet group,

  1. The industry currently has an annual revenue potential of N1.1trillion which is a far fetch from the estimated N350 billion for the year 2015.

In the beginning, there was just Nairabet. Now the list has grown to include bet365 Nigeria, 1960bet Nigeria, bet9ja, and other small operators in the sport betting business in Nigeria. Currently, there are over 10,000 betting shops that operating as offline betting centers for these companies all over the country.

sports betting is the new religion in nigeria
sports betting is the new religion in nigeria

It costs approximately 6 to 20 million Naira to obtain a betting license from the NLRC, another 200,000,000 Naira (Two hundred million) as standby funds in the bank, 4.5% of quarterly proceeds as operating fee, and 20% of all quarterly proceeds paid to the NLRC for “good causes”. Add the costs of setting up infrastructure, technology, and staff, then you can see that starting out as a betting company is no small feat.

So if there are so many bottlenecks to starting a betting company in Nigeria, intensive capital requirements, and a morally gray stance on betting, WHY ARE THEY SPRINGING UP LIKE MUSHROOMS?

It is easy to say that economic hardship is to blame for everyone suddenly needing to get rich quick by placing a 500 Naira wager on a football match. But that would not be entirely accurate. Nairabet started back in 2009, at a time when Nigeria was relatively stable compared to the mortgage crises that had just hit the US.

One could also argue that the companies were very effective with their marketing and promotion. But again, it is more complex than that; as no horrible product can be saved even by the best marketers in the world.

Maybe it is a combination of economic hardships in forms of youth unemployment, high poverty levels, below par wages of employed people, and high costs of living; with effective marketing, added to an inherent love for sports.

But to put this more aptly, I think sports betting is booming because these companies sell the same product as all churches do in Nigeria, HOPE.
They sell hope that the average punter can one day become a millionaire without much effort, just as churches sell hope that you could pray away all your troubles without hard work.

Betting companies may not be tax-free like their church counterparts, but they are just as profitable.

The most damning verdict of all the betting sites I visited was that there were NO CLEAR GUIDELINES to advise on “Responsible Gambling”, or any organizations based in Nigeria focused on helping gambling addicts.

How can one be addicted to a faith-based practice anyway?

Osinachi Anyanwu

Written by

Blaburn

Blaburn

Real Issues. Real Stories. Content to Inform, Inspire, Educate & Engage an evolving generation of Young Africans.

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