Online Betting Firms Gamble on Soccer-mad Nigeria > 자유게시판

By Alexis Akwagyiram and Didi Akinyelure

LAGOS, June 25 (Reuters) - Online sports betting is flourishing in soccer-mad Nigeria largely thanks to payment systems developed by homegrown technology firms that are starting to make online services more feasible.

For several years, mobile payments failed to remove in Nigeria as they have in countries such as Kenya, where Safaricom's M-Pesa money transfers have fostered a culture of cashless payments.

Fear of electronic fraud and slow web speeds have actually held Nigerian online consumers back but wagering companies states the brand-new, quick digital payment systems underpinning their sites are altering attitudes towards online transactions.

"We have actually seen substantial growth in the number of payment solutions that are readily available. All that is definitely changing the video gaming space," stated Seun Anibaba, CEO of Lagos State Lotteries Board, video gaming regulator in Nigeria's commercial capital.

"The operators will choose whoever is much faster, whoever can link to their platform with less issues and glitches," he stated, including that taxes from sports betting in Lagos State increased 30 percent to 40 percent in 2017 from 2016.

That growth has been matched by an increase in web payments, according to information from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), which is owned by the central bank and .

In 2016, there were 14 million web payments worth an overall 132 billion naira ($420 million). Transactions leapt to 29 million worth 185 billion in 2017 and in the first quarter of 2018 there were nearly 10 million worth 61 billion.

With a young population of nearly 190 million, increasing cellphone usage and falling data expenses, Nigeria has actually long been seen as a great opportunity for online companies - once consumers feel comfortable with electronic payments.

Online sports betting companies state that is taking place, though reaching the tens of millions of Nigerians without access to banking services remains a difficulty for pure online retailers.

British online sports betting company Betway opened its very first African business in Kenya in 2015, followed by Uganda, Ghana and South Africa. It released in Nigeria in January.

"There is a progressive shift to online now, that is where the market is going," Betway's Nigeria supervisor Lere Awokoya stated.

"The growth in the variety of fintechs, and the federal government as an enabler, has helped business to grow. These technological shifts motivated Betway to start operating in Nigeria," he said.

FINTECH COMPETITION

sports betting companies capitalizing the soccer frenzy whipped up by Nigeria's participation in the World Cup state they are finding the payment systems developed by regional start-ups such as Paystack are proving popular online.

Paystack and another local startup Flutterwave, both established in 2016, are providing competitors for Nigeria's Interswitch which was established in 2002 and was the main platform utilized by organizations operating in Nigeria.

"We added Paystack as one of our payment options with no fanfare, without revealing to our consumers, and within a month it soared to the primary most secondhand payment option on the site," stated Akin Alabi, creator of NairabBET.

He stated NairaBET, the country's second greatest wagering company, now had 2 million regular customers on its website, up from 500,000 in 2013, and Paystack remained the most popular payment option since it was added in late 2017.

Paystack was established by two Nigerian computer technology graduates, Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, who received early phase funding in Silicon Valley's Y-Combinator program.

In December 2016, it raised $1.3 million from investors consisting of China's Tencent and Comcast Ventures in the United States.

Paystack, based in the mad Ikeja district of Lagos, said the number of regular monthly deals it processed rose from about 8,000 in early 2016 to more than 900,000 as of June 2018.

"In early 2016 we were processing about $3,000 a month. Today we process well over $11 million every single month," said Emmanuel Quartey, Paystack's head of growth.

He stated an ecosystem of developers had actually emerged around Paystack, developing software application to incorporate the platform into sites. "We have seen a development in that neighborhood and they have actually carried us along," said Quartey.

Paystack said it enables payments for a number of sports betting companies but also a large range of companies, from energy services to carry companies to insurer Axa Mansard.

Flutterwave, co-founded by Nigerian entrepreneur Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, is likewise backed by the Y-Combinator program as well as venture capitalists Greycroft Partners and Green Visor Capital and the Omidyar Network. It raised $10 million in 2015.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT

Shifts in Nigeria's payment culture have accompanied the arrival of foreign financiers wanting to tap into sports betting wagering.

Industry specialists say the sector produces about $1 billion a year and is likely to grow faster than in South Africa and Kenya where the business is more established.

Russia's 1XBet and Slovakia's DOXXbet have actually both set up in Nigeria in the last two years while Italy's Goldbet was ahead of the pattern, taking a 50 percent stake in market leader Bet9ja when the Nigerian firm introduced in 2015.

NairaBET's Alabi said its sales were divided between shops and online but the ease of electronic payments, cost of running stores and capability for customers to prevent the preconception of sports betting in public suggested online transactions would grow.

But despite advances in digital payments, Kunle Soname - chairman and co-founder of Bet9ja - stated it was necessary to have a store network, not least due to the fact that many customers still remain reluctant to invest online.

He stated the company, with about 60 percent of Nigeria's sports betting wagering market, had a comprehensive network. Nigerian wagering stores often act as social centers where clients can watch soccer free of charge while placing bets.

At a BetKing hall deep inside the busy Oshodi market in Lagos, dozens of soccer fans collected to view Nigeria's last warm up game before the World Cup.

Richard Onuka, a factory employee who earns 25,000 naira a month, was fixated on a TV screen inside. He said he began gambling three months earlier and bets up to 1,000 naira a day.

"Since I have actually been playing I have not won anything however I think that one day I will win," stated Onuka. ($1 = 314.5000 naira) (Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram and Didi Akinyelure in Lagos; editing by David Clarke)

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