Our project aims to build a massive ecosystem of over one billion people in Africa around lotteries, gaming and the new Kamari coin (KAM).
Nations all over the globe are struggling with skyrocketing inflation rates but the pain is most acute in Africa. Couple this with inadequate access to financial resources, and the interest in cryptocurrency becomes apparent. Mass adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies can provide countries across Africa with an alternative to the numerous, and expensive, mobile money providers.
Africa has been projected to be one of the World’s great growth regions on the coming decades. As Africa’s population doubles to two billion over the next several decades, its GDP is predicted to increase from $2 trillion today to $29 trillion in today’s money by 2050.
With one of the youngest populations in the world with two-thirds of their population under the age of 24, Africa is also home to the world’s fastest growing mobile market, with three quarters of the population owning a mobile device. Nearly half of these owners have a mobile subscription plan, as many use their mobile device as their primary (and only) connection to the internet.
This, in combination with a rapidly growing young adult population keen to adopt new technologies, paints Africa as the ideal starting grounds for a platform at the intersection of cryptocurrencies and digital gaming — enter Kamari.
What is Kamari
Kamari is the brainchild of a group of entrepreneurs with deep roots to the continent, who are looking to pioneer a blockchain system that empowers Africa through access to an online gaming platform and borderless payment solution.
In the way that Europe has its own pan-European lottery known as Euromillions, Kamari will bring to market Africa’s first transcontinental lottery, allowing hundreds of millions of internet users to purchase tickets. Participants can potentially win large prizes, and also smaller instant win prizes to improve user-value. Not only are cross-border lotteries expected to help bring economic growth, they will also serve an egalitarian purpose. Lotteries can help unite people across Africa by breaking down tensions between countries, through friendly engagement, but also practically by providing shared infrastructure between countries.
Kamari is more than the sum of its parts. In addition to cross-border lotteries, sports betting and online casinos, the Kamari Coin plans to have both physical POS terminals, and online Kamari-compatible POS apps. This can potentially provide Africans access to otherwise unavailable merchants and retailers, which can lead to further opportunity for prosperity.
Although Kamari will initially focus on Africa, there are plans to bring its unified mobile gaming platform to the rest of the globe, potentially creating the world’s first truly borderless online gaming and payments platform — PowerBall, but for the entire world.
Africa: One of the World’s Biggest Growth Markets
In 2018, six of the ten fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa: Ghana, Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Tanzania, and Senegal. The potential for economic gains in Africa are enormous, as the population grows exponentially faster than the rest of the world. While the total population of Africa recently surpassed 1.2 billion, Africa’s population remains skewed towards younger people. The average age of a person in Africa is 19.5 years, according to the U.N. This skew means a younger workforce in the next decade, which has higher levels of tech literacy than previous generations, and is actively participating in the global tech boom.
Today, the GDP of all of Africa totals just over $2 trillion. The World Bank predicts that if Africa stays on its current trajectory of high population growth, further improvements in infrastructure, and sustainable resource management, it’s GDP will rise to $29 trillion by 2050. This growth opportunity remains immense for Africa, as it has the ability for hundreds of millions of Africans to rise from poverty through economic growth.
Opportunity By The Numbers
Africa already has an existing gambling culture, with multiple countries already ahead of the curve with legitimate industries well established. In total, over 222 million adults in Africa are living in countries with established licensing for some form of gambling. The three primary gambling sectors in Africa are lotteries, sports betting, and digital casinos.
Sports betting currently maintains the most licenses by country and population. On a continent where the majority of the population are actively engaged in football and cricket, the translation into sports betting is only logical. Nearly 190 million adults in Africa live in countries with an existing licensing apparatus that allows for engagement with sports betting.
Digital casinos have also become more popularized in Africa over the last decade with 118 million adult Africans living in countries that have legalized the activity. Lotteries are slowly making their ascension into popularity, but are still behind the sports betting and digital casino sectors. Currently, just over 100 million Africans, of the 1.2 billion in Africa, can participate in national lotteries.
The business opportunity speaks for itself. With nearly 400 million Africans already living in countries with licensing for various forms of gambling, there is still room for growth. There are a handful of countries currently seeking a licensing apparatus for certain gambling sectors, but nearly half the continent is not even in the licensing stages yet. As Kamari builds its ecosystem of licensed countries, perhaps more countries will come online to participate in these sectors.
Challenges Kamari Can Solve
By offering its payment solution to sports bettors in African countries, Kamari looks to simultaneously disrupt both the mobile payments and online betting industries with boots on the ground in Africa.
There are several reasons why such a system doesn’t exist yet. The most prominent of these is the extreme fluctuations in fiat exchange rates that exist between countries in Africa. This leads to varying tax rates and betting odds in different countries, which creates unequal and disparate betting opportunities across the continent. African gamblers also face challenges with shady sportsbooks, lotteries and gambling portals being commonplace, and expensive payment gateways which add to the already high costs of dealing with such platforms.
Beyond Online Gambling
While Kamari might begin as a pan-African blockchain-based betting platform, its potential stretches far beyond simple betting. Kamari is creating a system that democratizes access to earnings potential, while helping to promote economic prosperity to all regions involved. There is undoubtedly a critical need for a fast, cheap and secure mobile payment solution in Africa, since a majority of the population remains unbanked. Kamari coin can become the tool used to improve access to money services.
Each year, Kamari aims to bring 100,000 POS terminals into its ecosystem, which should act to massively improve the utility of the KAM token, while simultaneously bolstering the credibility of the platform, making it more attractive to retail partners, game providers and governments.
The team Kamari has assembled is already well on its way to establishing its gaming platform. They recently acquired licensing for various African countries — lottery licenses in seven African countries, sports betting licenses in twelve African countries, and licensing for digital casinos in nine African countries. With these secured, there are several other licenses still pending in some countries, and expansion plans for new licensing as well. Over the next five years, Kamari plans to have betting licenses in 21 African countries, and reach Africa’s +500 million telco subscribers.
Kamari’s vision is clear — to harness the demographic changes benefitting Africa this century and use it to assist in the economic transformation happening across the continent. Their commitment to utilizing blockchain-based technologies to propel economic development will empower an entire generation of tech entrepreneurs to seize the reins of their own destiny. This gaming platform and pan-African lottery will bring disparate Africans together, and drive further cooperation against neighboring peoples. Kamari is creating a new economic skeleton for Africa, one which can facilitate cross border payments, and ultimately transforms how value is stored and shared in Africa.
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