The Menace caused by bet9ja

28 year old Akinwale Olabode (not real names), a graduate of History from the Lagos State University, is an ardent gambler who hopes to start his own agriculture business someday. According to him, he doesn’t keep track of his spending but believes that he has won more than he has spent on sports betting.

Until very recently, pool staking and the
ubiquitous lottery, popularly known as Baba Ijebu, were the popular gambling systems known to most Nigerians. Those who patronize them are generally seen as never do well old men, school drop outs and frustrated individuals obsessed with building castles in the air.

But with the current unemployment rate in Nigeria, young people, especially educated youths, have joined the growing army of gamblers who stake their hard earned money to play.

While pool staking, tied mainly to the different tiers of European football leagues, had been around for so long, long before young people even became sucked into the frenzy of supporting foreign football clubs, Baba Ijebu, only came onto the scene in the last decade or so.

But while the two processes can be regarded as the forerunners of gambling in Nigeria, there is a new system known widely as sports betting. Known to have originated in North America and parts of Europe, sport betting is described as the activity of predicting sports results, especially football matches, and placing a wager on the outcome which is generally considered to be a form of gambling.

Investigations by The Youths revealed that there are tens of online sports betting companies in Nigeria, the leading ones include Bet365Naija, 360Bet, SureBet247, NairaBet, Bet9ja and 1960Bet. Others are MerryBet, BetRepublicana, BetColony and LovingBet.

With no doubt, seventy percent of Nigerian youths are patriotic patronizers of football betting. The rise of these bets is becoming so social that the media now propagandize their various jingles and ads on how to become a Bill Gates in just a day.

Although there are debates over the advantages and disadvantages of football betting but the truth is that it is gradually becoming a canker worm eating deep into the fabric of our society. It has tremendously promoted laziness among youths, blurred dreams and fuelled the desire for quick money thereby degrading education and apprenticeship to its minimum value.

In the last three years or so, more Nigerians, especially from the age of 15 and 45, seem to have embraced sports betting, making it the most popular emerging form of sorts gambling in the country. The popularity football enjoys in the country has reflected in making sport betting a darling of many misguided youths.

However, like Olabode, Hazeez Fioye an IT enthusiast believes “sports betting has helped to give a dream to Nigerian youths most of whom are football fans, there is nothing like football in Nigeria we love football so much and there is nothing like earning from what you love doing.

“I have had my wins and losses several times but as an addicted gambler I strongly believe that sport betting is good and has helped Nigerian youths greatly. I may not have won much but I know of someone who has won 500,000 and started a business with the money he won. So you can see that it is helping to build the dreams of Nigerian youths.”

Explaining how it works, Fioye revealed that “there are different types of betting, you can predict scores if you like and you can predict a draw. If they give you first half draw, nothing concerns you with the second half since they have drawn the first half. But if any of them wins, it means you have lost.”

Asked how much most people pay for a wager, he said most go for the N100 wager since its cheaper and affordable.

According to him, “one can stake online but before you can play online you would have to create an account and attach your personal bank account. Somebody like me I usually play online because I can do it in the comfort of my room and anytime I like.”

Although it is risky in nature many Nigerians youths, seem to have found a new way of making ends meet through sport betting. Every day of the week, they take to online and other forms of sports betting to avoid the wrath of nature, thereby making the business to boom.

With Nigeria having a huge youth population, estimated at about 68 million, these young people seem to have channeled their energy into sports betting, placing bets on different matches played in European and other nations daily while the companies are smiling to the banks daily.

Some of them stake all their savings and in the process, deny themselves of food. The rush is increasing, but there is nothing one can do to stop the youths because betting is in all ways better than engaging themselves in criminal activities.

However, Yakub Kamaldeen Aliagan says “gambling in all its forms is wrong and almighty Allah is against it. Our creator does not want us to engage in gambling because the evils in it supersede any good you can think it has.


“When you look at most of those who engage in gambling you will see that there is no gain in it at all. You can’t see anyone who would tell you that he built his house or bought a car or do anything tangible with proceeds from betting,” he said.

Buttressing this line of argument, Pastor Ralph Adeyemi popularly called Temioseese, says “gambling or betting is wrong no matter what form it takes. It is a venture that God really frown at.”

According to him, “God does not want us to indulge in gambling because of its numerous disadvantages. Although there is no record of suicide because of lost from betting but the possibility is high as prolonged depression can cause suicide. It also kills creativity among our youths because, come to thnk of it, if people like Mark Zuckerberg was using his time to search for the best betting site, there wouldn’t have been Facebook and if Bill Gates was busy gambling away his life there will be no Microsoft.”

However, despite the obvious negativity of sport betting and the huge risks involved in it most unemployed and underemployed youths in the country still find succour in it as it remains a promising venture whose lure is irresistible.