Happy Nice Mall

Other companies followed SportPesa’s lead. Hempstone Ngare, a former radio reporter hired in 2017 to manage social media for one of the company’s competitors, remembers a particularly aggressive marketing era: billboards placed around the country, “good-looking ladies” offering T-shirts in exchange for autographs. ups, spam text messages, and Ngare’s own posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter designed to lure followers who can later become customers. Opportunity abounded. A 2016 survey at Kenyatta University found that 78% of male students and 57% of female students attempt to bet, with almost half gambling at least once a week (and 80% reporting net losses). Subsequent surveys by GeoPoll consistently revealed that more than three-quarters of youth in Kenya and more than half in Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa indulge in their phones, mostly with the help of mobile money.

As sports betting settled in, addiction followed. A 2020 study of Kenyan student bookies by Ogachi found that about seven out of 10 people were diagnosed with a gambling disorder. Nelson Bwire, who led the Kenyatta University survey when he was an undergraduate, was so concerned that he founded the Kenya Gaming Awareness Association, a nonprofit aimed at reducing the harm of gambling. Bwire has counseled students who had to drop out after losing their tuition fees, and workers jailed for squandering their employers’ money.

A habit that isn’t easy to kick

Some argue that Kenya should ban sports betting altogether. It certainly has precedent: its application is very limited in many parts of the world, including most of Asia and the Middle East. Still, those familiar with the Kenyan industry say dramatic reforms are unlikely. First, taxes from bets have become a major source of revenue for Kenya’s cash-strapped government. Many of the country’s leading bookmakers also have close financial ties to politicians or their partners; Some believe it may be part of the reason why the 2019 bill, which calls for a new regulator with stronger teeth, has not gained traction in the Kenyan parliament. The bookies themselves have become important sources of employment: Ngare, who has worked for many of them, says he would rather go back to journalism, but he also has rent to pay and parents who need to come home to support.

Still, there are signs that Kenyan authorities are having some success in reining in the excesses of the industry. The new taxes on bets and winnings seem to have encouraged some punters to take the cut. A law passed last December gives the Central Bank new powers to regulate digital lenders. Gambling firms can no longer advertise on radio and television during daylight hours, thanks to restrictions imposed by the country’s Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB). However, the industry is still advancing. In July 2019, the board refused to renew the licenses of 27 bookmakers, including SportPesa, on the payment of taxes in a row. Some have returned and new firms have seen an opening. Today, the BCLB lists 99 licensed bookmakers, more than before to print.

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In an interview at the Nairobi headquarters, BCLB director Peter Mbugi told me that the number of Kenyans bets and the total volumes bet on was lower today than in 2019, but declined to share any figures. Mbugi attributes the decline to tighter regulations and a growing awareness that sports betting is not as “pink” as many think. But others say the drop in numbers may be a temporary drop caused by the 2019 concussion and pandemic, which squeezed household finances and disrupted global football leagues for months. Data from Safaricom, which controls more than 99% of Kenya’s mobile money market, shows that M-Pesa users’ transactions with betting sites increased from $436 million in the same period of 2020 to $737 million in the six months ending September 2021. Meanwhile, there are new African markets to explore. Karen Njerenga, who leads marketing in Kenya for Betway, a global firm operating in seven African countries, says the company has seen its eyes in many other countries. Chalkline Sports, which helps bookies win and retain customers, described the continent’s “untapped potential” in online gaming as “incredible”.

BRIAN OTIENO

Some hope that the same kinds of technologies that have helped this industry thrive could also reduce the damage it can cause. Last year, for example, Bwire and fellow activist Weldon Koros partnered with British company Gamban to offer an app that allows addicts to block access to all gambling sites on their devices. Reception of non-removable software has been modest so far, but Bwire says it has helped some people “lower the attraction.” Bwire and Koros have also had some success lobbying universities to block betting sites on their network: Students are thought to be spending less time on their devices if they have to pay for data. And the guys are praising Safaricom’s launch of a “smart mobile payment system” for student loans in 2021 that prevents tuition fees from being diverted to betting. But Bwire wants the company to do more, in addition to credits from external apps, including text-based advertising and imposing tighter restrictions on the overdraft facilities many bookies use to place bets on credit. (A spokesperson for Safaricom, which earned $37 million in betting-related fees in fiscal 2021, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

Betting has become something so fundamental to his identity, says Kirwa, that it’s hard for him to understand life without it.

New digital products may lead some punters to alternative hustle and bustle. Kevin Kegera, a third-year student at Kenyatta University, says he tried sports betting after high school but gave up when he realized that luck was against him. These days, he has moved on to currency trading: FXPesa, an app that lets him use mobile money to do this, was launched in 2019, and others have followed suit. Many of his friends use apps to trade foreign currencies, cryptocurrency or foreign stocks – options that weren’t even available a few years ago. Aiming to be the “Warren Buffett of Kenya,” Kegera suspects that greater awareness of these products will likely continue to attract some educated Kenyans to bet, if not their audience. “It’s very difficult to convince someone who hasn’t been to college about markets,” he says.

Kirwa, for his part, is unlikely to quit his habit. One evening in Eldoret, I joined him in his red Toyota Vitz hatchback, which he equipped with tinted windows and electric blue interior lighting. Afrobeats rising from the stereo would have been less tinny if it had had the old sound system, he complained, but he had sold it to pay back a loan used to bet. Despite Kirwa’s poor track record in the years since his big win, he says he’s not considering quitting. Betting has become such a core part of his identity that it’s hard for him to understand life without it, she says. Also, it’s very convenient. His smartphone and M-Pesa wallet will always be in his pocket and there is a chance that luck will always be by your side.

Jonathan W. Rosen is a writer and journalist from Africa..