The development of the gambling sector in Nigeria had a couple of consequences. First of all, more people could be involved in this field as developers, members of customer support services, web designers, and so on. Moreover, it opened access for foreign providers to the Nigerian market and, accordingly, to the flow of investments. Also, now, more players have the opportunity to play and win real money prizes on their favourite games.
Software Implementation
Together with the growth of gaming revenues and flows of overseas capital, this trend causes a number of negative effects. First of all, they are related to the regulation of this industry, as well as the ability of players to limit themselves from gambling.
Self-Exclusion Like GamStop
Currently, there are no reputable self-exclusion tools gamblers can use and the list of casinos with no GamStop exclusion is pretty big. On the one hand, it does not hold back the growth of people who are involved in the gambling sphere and, accordingly, the industry as a whole. However, on the other hand, there is a high risk of increasing the number of people who have a gambling addiction.
So, even if a person understands that he has problems with addiction, he is limited in effective tools that would allow him to reduce the amount of money that he uses to play on the site or block his account. Moreover, in Nigeria, the sphere of consultation for players who have gambling addiction is underdeveloped.
KYC Procedure to Prevent Frauds
The second negative point of such a rapid but uncontrolled growth of the gambling industry in Nigeria is a lack of ID verification. Because of this, a number of gaming portals do not conduct a thorough check of users (first of all, it is related to KYC documents check). It leads to a growing number of scammers who can use the players’ personal data or directly their money.
Income From Gambling: Statistic
Over the past years, Nigeria’s gambling industry has been growing at a rapid pace, bringing in revenue to the country’s budget. These funds are spent on the development of the healthcare system, education, and so on. Nigeria belongs to the South African region, which is the leading market on the continent, with a total gambling industry GGR of around $2 billion and an Internet penetration of 54%.
According to statistics, the population of Nigeria spends about 5 million dollars a day on gambling. Some suggest that the annual turnover of rates can be about 1.9-2 billion dollars. Part of this amount goes to offshore sites. Bonuses on these platforms are bigger which make addition benefits for Nigerian players and gives more pleasure to the game. By the way, according to the forecast, gross gambling revenue in Nigeria has to grow by more than 16% in 2023.
Career Opportunities
The gambling sphere creates jobs in the IT industry, where operators hire local professionals with programming, design, hardware, and computer networking skills. Moreover, online casinos always need customer support, which is why operators also hire specialists to help users cope with the difficulties they may face while using the gaming site.
Conclusion
As can be seen from this review, the Nigerian market is really developing rapidly, and this has a positive effect. Online gaming sites can create new jobs, while the country’s budget is replenished with a lot of money from both direct gamblers and foreign investors. However, one should not forget about the negative consequences, which primarily relate to the increase in the number of players who suffer from gaming addiction.
They cannot self-exclude themselves due to the lack of effective tools (such as a GamStop) or set limits on the deposit amounts they could use daily, weekly, monthly, and so on. In addition, there are problems with ID verification, which leads to an increase in cases of fraud and theft of personal data and money.
