All sectors go through an evolution, and sports betting in Nigeria has spanned centuries to reach its current status. There’s a storied history of how betting in the country got up and running, which are the foundations of today’s gambling economy in Nigeria.
Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and a recent study returned numbers that around 36% of adults in the country had gambled, with sports betting being the most popular form.
Nigeria’s gambling landscape has had heavy British influence throughout the years. It spans from the introduction of pool-style wagering in the early 20th century right through to the modern era of 5 pound deposit betting sites, with similar low-financial-threshold online platforms now prevalent in Nigeria.
Where Did It Start?
The British Colonial Government brought pool betting to Nigeria, to give the expatriates in the country a taste of home, with betting already heavily embedded within British culture. Nigeria’s gambling scene had been more focused on casino play than anything up until then, but Nigerians quickly took to sports pool betting.
In the 1950s, there was a major leap forward when the Nigerian Football Pools Association (NFPA) was formed to control this increasingly popular pastime. The NFPA became the organiser of official pools, responsible for collecting stake and distributing the winnings. With that in place, pool betting roared on successfully for the next couple of decades.
Sports Lottery
There was something of a big shift in Nigeria’s betting scene in the 1990s, thanks to the rise of the Sports Lottery. While much the same as the pools, private companies started getting in on the gambling scene, offering lottery products on the outcomes of football matches. This was completely separate from the regulation of the NFPA, but it didn’t deter punters, who lapped up these new, exciting products.
Criminal Code Act
The Criminal Code Act was the first important piece of legislation regarding gambling laws in Nigeria that appeared early in the 1990s. Under this law, lottery, land-based casino play and sports betting became legal, and was a way for the government to generate tax revenue from gambling.
But the legislation left other things off the table, such as card games not based on skill, plus other chance games like Roulette and dice games, rendering them illegal. Slot machines are regulated in Nigeria, but operators have to obtain a licence first.
National Lottery Act 2005
Nigeria’s National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) was formed after the National Lottery Act 2005 was passed. The NLRC is responsible for issuing gambling licences in Nigeria, covering lottery, land-based and online sports betting, plus promotional permits.
All licences for gambling operations within the country have to be signed off by the NLRC, which is a layer of control, but the National Lottery Act 2005 has no specific provisions to specifically regulate online gambling.
Rudimentary online gambling sites started appearing in the late 1990s and the rapid global expansion of the online gaming industry opened doors to unregulated, dangerous sites, which led to the call for tighter, stricter rules not only in Nigeria, but across Europe too.
Technology Drives Growth
The first decade of the new century saw significant advances in online sports betting and online casino play. Betting sites became populated with more and more sports markets, covering a greater number of events from around the world.
Internet connections improved, as did the software running betting sites, allowing bettors to fund accounts with various deposit methods, find more sports bets, explore live in-play betting plus vast portfolios of slots and live casino games.
More and more online operators came onto the scene, bombarding players with bonus offers designed to attract new customers and to keep existing ones playing. Mobile gambling, thanks to the growth of smartphones, accelerated things further.
Revenue
Online gambling is important to the Nigerian economy. There are more than 40 operators licensed for online gambling in the country. A report published in 2023 found that Nigeria’s gambling revenue is second only in value to that of South Africa’s on the continent, with a turnover thought to be around $2 billion per year, and increasing annually.
More Needed?
Many countries had to scramble to get things under control in terms of regulation due to online gambling. The UK Gambling Commission tightened their controls, while previously liberal betting scenes in the likes of Spain and Italy also saw stricter regulations come in, with new laws and regulatory bodies.
But many countries around the world are still catching up. In 2019 the state of Lagos started issuing licences for online sports betting, giving Nigerians access to offshore online gambling. It perhaps begs the question, whether more stringent regulation and better enforcement is required in Nigeria to better protect its ever-increasing population of bettors amid the modern gambling scene?
