Inside Nigeria’s Sports Betting Boom and Its Hidden Costs
Olafadeke Akeju
Yes, the sports betting industry in Nigeria is booming, and the activities in betting shops, both in bustling cities and small towns, as well as the traffic it generates on digital platforms, are indicative of this. Yet, behind the numbers and the noise, a range of threats quietly looms. These challenges, from addiction and underage gambling to regulatory gaps and taxation concerns, threaten to undermine the stability and sustainability of the industry if left unaddressed. The GAMINGWEEK team, comprising Nseobong Okon-Ekong and Iyke Bede, explores the fault lines through the eyes of an industry expert, Olafadeke Akeju, Managing Partner at WYS Solicitors, in uncovering the risks that stakeholders can no longer afford to ignore.
Akeju starts her analysis by stating the pivotal role of the punter, clarifying that all the activities in the sports betting world are hinged on their preferences. Without them, the industry doesn’t exist.
She said, “Gaming is actually an aspect of entertainment. People like to separate it. Why? Because of the perspective, because of the reputation it has. And why does it have that reputation? Because we see the problems that it causes sometimes.”
“Gambling, by some people, is considered a source of livelihood,” Akeju said, contextualising problem gambling, which, if not tackled properly, presents as a threat. The logic here being, when most punters are problem gamblers, the industry will hardly sustain itself from year-on-year low revenue resulting from a majority of punters losing a bulk of their income and livelihood to gambling addiction. In short, there will be fewer players ultimately.
“There are people who will tell you, ‘This is what I do for a business. I place bets.’ They’re giving numbers, they’re giving codes, and people are using those codes. Whilst there is a place for it, we should not allow that perception that gambling is a business,” she advised.
With this mentality towards gambling, Akeju speculated that it has become one of the reasons the government is pushing to impose withholding tax on winnings, due to the ‘income’ status punters have ascribed to it. Akeju further argues that it shouldn’t be counted as income for punters.
“For somebody who would win five million, for every one person who wins five million, there are probably a thousand people who have won zero. What about the people that are losing? What about gambling addiction? Underage gambling,” said Akeju. “Young persons who have no business gambling. Perhaps we should look at the root cause of why — the way we advertise.”
In Nigeria, advertising regulations for betting remain weak, with few restrictions on timing or content. Operators routinely place adverts during primetime shows and football matches, often reaching underage audiences. Unlike in some countries, there’s little enforcement to limit exposure or protect vulnerable groups.
In 2022, the UK introduced a ban on gambling adverts featuring sports stars, which took effect in October, and by 2023, Premier League clubs agreed to end front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships from the 2026–27 season.
“Adverts in other countries are not primetime. It’s not during the daytime. It’s not in your face,” Akeju argued. “Gaming adverts [here] are in our faces. I conduct interviews with people, and then I’m like, ‘Oh, name a brand that you know.’ Very quickly, there’s a certain brand that will just pop up. Even if the person is like, ‘I’m a churchgoer.’ You’re watching a match with your son or daughter, and at halftime, what pops up? Back-to-back to back, like four or five gaming adverts. And they’re asking you, mommy, what is this brand?”
Akeju’s assessment of unrestricted advertisements is that they give a false sense of normalcy to potentially harmful behaviours, resulting in the creation of a generation of ‘easy money’.
“We don’t see it as entertainment anymore. In the West, it’s not as rampant. You would never see a child in a gambling shop. Once, in the UK, a woman had a baby in a pram that she was pushing, and then she wanted to go into the shop,” she explained. “They told her, ‘No, you can’t, you have a child.’ I’m talking about a baby who’s not conscious of what’s going on.”
Moving on from the players’ potential to addiction, the operators’ illusion of seeing the industry as a money-spinning machine, Akeju highlighted the regulators’ insatiable appetite for imposing taxes on the operators, ultimately cutting into profits and discouraging innovation in the sector.
“What we see is that the government does not educate itself enough. They see the money, and they leave it at that. Without understanding the value chain, what process does that money go through? And at the end of the day, operators are maintaining maybe between three to maybe eight per cent bottom line as profit,” added Akeju. “That’s the take-home at the end of the day, after all is said and done, for those who are profitable. Not many of them are profitable.”
In all, while the promise of Nigeria’s sports betting sector is evident in its rapid expansion and deepening digital penetration, the issues flagged by Akeju serve as a timely reminder that unchecked growth comes at a cost. From the normalisation of gambling through aggressive advertising to the misperception of betting as a sustainable source of income, the industry is grappling with complex social and economic dilemmas.
Add to this a tax-hungry regulatory environment that overlooks the operational realities of betting firms, and it becomes clear that reform is overdue. For the sector to thrive sustainably, stakeholders—government, operators, advertisers, and indeed punters—must re-evaluate their roles, ensuring that economic gains do not eclipse the need for accountability, ethical standards, and consumer protection.
