Africa: On the sporting trail

Africa. The cradle of civilisation. The birthplace of mankind itself. The huge, diverse continent has its own way of doing things; it always has – and that includes gambling

Sporting events are, naturally, a big deal in Africa. The vuvuzelas can still be heard ringing in the ears of football fans from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, alongside Senegal’s prideful chants at winning the African Cup of Nations in 2022 – as can the celebrations of the Springboks following the team’s Rugby World Cup victory in 2019. The fact is that almost every country in Africa has a special relationship with sports, from the children that seem to always be playing football in the background of various documentaries to the adoration for the South African Springboks Rugby team.

Even in the most recent 2022 FIFA World Cup, Morocco’s path to the semi-final – the furthest any African team has ever managed to get in the illustrious competition – was met with a widespread outpouring of love. So, with the significant attention paid to sports in Africa, Gambling Insider explores how the sports betting market has grown in recent years to meet with the intense sporting obsession the continent has.

THE SUPPLY-SIDE VIEW

Antonino Barra, Head of Sales at Altenar, spoke exclusively to Gambling Insider about the African market and how the retail market is growing and evolving across the continent. Exactly how much is retail sports betting growing in Africa? In response to this question, Barra first discussed how Altenar has moved into the space. He said: “The tradition for retail is still embedded in Africa’s betting landscape, and we’ve seen that greater attention has been placed on physical points of betting as there’s less internet penetration throughout Africa. Altenar has tailored its sports betting solutions to the challenges faced by Africa’s betting market, which often includes the need for access points through retail. “This has been achieved by Altenar’s Agent System, which has created a healthy ecosystem of commission-based incentives to bring new and excited players to sports betting, and the ability for those already -seasoned players to have a place where they can indulge their favourite pastimes.

“The sports betting Agent System creates the opportunity for operators to find and allow a set of local partners to build their own network. This consists of super agents can and subsequently of agents (freelancers

/physical shops), who then find their own players to register to this network by having them either create an online account within the system, or create a cashier account for the person who will be placing the bets on behalf of the retail clients. This helps to bring state-of-the-art technologies to a retail-heavy betting landscape. Your local agents can track performance, reports, betting patterns and logs through the Agent System for each player. On top of this, we have our betting terminals as well.”

AFRICA’S BIGGEST MARKETS

Of the 54 countries in Africa, Barra highlights the four that show the biggest promise in the retail sports betting market. Unsurprisingly, South Africa is the largest of the four, with Barra saying: “South Africa has the continent’s largest gambling sector, with some forecasting that total gaming income could exceed $2.3bn by 2023. South Africa, while not as populous as some of its contemporaries, punches above its weight owing to Africa’s third-highest GDP.”

Coming in second is Nigeria, which “has by far the highest population and GDP in

Africa, above the 200 million and $443bn milestones. It’s no surprise that the nation has the largest gambling market in Sub-Saharan Africa by GGR, accounting for 7% of the continent’s total,” according to Barra.

Third is Tanzania, a country that “chose high-tech solutions to make the reporting process as user-friendly as possible, including the implementation of an API that automatically records every wager placed on internet platforms, and the trend shows a tendency toward significant and stable growth during the next couple of years.”

Finally, taking fourth position on Altenar’s round-up of the biggest African sports betting markets is Ghana. “For some years, the Ghana Gaming Commission has been working on a comprehensive regulatory framework, which has produced a highly friendly climate for onshore operators. The cost of licences awarded by the Gaming Commission varies based on the type of business permitted. The one for sportsbooks will cost around $40,000, while the one for casinos will cost around $50,000. In addition to licence costs, operators must charge VAT on their services.”

The big four countries in Africa look set to solidify the trend of retail sports betting across the continent by establishing how to grow the market for bettors. But which methods will become the blueprint is yet to be seen – which will, in some small part, come to define Africa’s relationship with sports betting as a whole.

Appetite And Retail

Barra’s insight into the African market then turned to what Africans are looking for in regard to retail sports betting, and the differences found between the appetite of African players and their European or American counterparts. “Nowadays, sports betting in Africa relies primarily on soccer and horseracing, with no major differences in terms of betting behaviour with the Europeans or the Americans. The difference is made at vertical level; indeed, if it is true that in North Africa there is a considerable interest in horseracing – which goes as far as the fifteenth century – Africans are said to have been betting on football for over 70 years.

“Besides, and despite sports betting thriving in African markets, young, tech-savvy African players are increasingly turning to virtual sports, drawn by the possibility of unlimited betting that this fairly new vertical entails. This is, for example, an opposing trend to Europe and America, where the average punter is more prone to switch to either esports or fantasy football or, on the other hand, convert from.”

Then, moving into discussing if there are any places in Africa where retail is slowly picking up, Barra said: “This can be quite the tricky question, as we see a call for retail in some of the largest betting landscapes in the world, even if these countries have fully adopted online betting and gaming. For this, there’s potential for a reclaim of retail throughout the UK, Spain and other betting landscapes like these. However, I do not think it will fully return to retail. It can depend on the pastimes of a country on whether retail may begin to pick up – in the UK, for instance, we may see a greater call for terminals in points of contact like pubs, where traditionally bettors will play these types of games.”

When it comes to the wants and requirements of the African retail sports betting market, the variations between it and the Western markets are not as significant as they first appear. More business is being driven by online markets than in retail, due to the influence of national pastimes in different cultures. However, the highlighted difference between young African bettors and those in the West in turning to virtual sports is a departure that could see the African market evolve in new ways to support the trend.

A COMPLETE MIXTURE OF RULES, REGULATIONS AND RECKLESS ABANDON

The difficulty in summing up Africa’s regulations comes from the fact that it has every form of gambling regulation found on Earth. Some parts of it are exreme, with a near-total ban on anything to do with wagering, whereas other parts have next to zero restrictions and allow people to fall prey to problem gambling without anything to stop them. It seems that with every nation you look at in Africa, it had drastically different views on gambling than those that surround it. Of course, there are areas that broadly share the same feelings on the practice – West African countries, for example.

In Nigeria, sports betting is fully legal and the population of 60 million people there enjoy the practice – as well as lotteries and land-based casino gaming. However, games such as roulette, dice-based games and cards games are illegal.

But, despite the confusing mix of regulations across the continent, Barra believes the situation is getting steadily better, saying: “It’s increasingly improving, especially as we see providers and operators like ourselves enter the space whose expertise are routed and founded in highly regulated markets and with conscious betting and gaming in mind.” Of course, it is up to every individual country to deal with gambling regulation; however, in the case of Africa, the vast differences in legality may create a confusing picture.

Low Levels Of Help For Problem Gamblers

Despite the expansion of retail sports betting on the continent, there have been major difficulties.

As a result of the industry beginning to have a vastly bigger impact, problem gambling has become somewhat rife among some bettors. The issue is that many countries have little to no help for those suffering from the effects of problem gambling, which is usually due to the poor infrastructure and data collection other parts of the world have in place to combat it. The issue was highlighted by Dr Darragh McGee at the University of Bath, who said in his academic report: “The findings point to a lack of regulation, transparency, and protection from gambling harms across Sub-Saharan Africa, despite evidence that the industry is rapidly expanding. The need to address this regulatory void and prioritise a public health approach is urgent. Decisive action by policymakers across Africa can safeguard against the kind of runaway excess and harms that have been an avoidable by-product of gambling in markets such as the UK.”

Meanwhile, Professor Gerda Reith, of the Gambling Research Glasgow collective based in the University of Glasgow, added: “The rapid expansion of the gambling industry into Sub-Saharan Africa is especially worrying when the regulatory frameworks that might control them are often weak or poorly enforced, as this research has found. This trend raises serious concerns about the potential impacts of harm on the health and wellbeing of vulnerable populations, many of whom live in conditions of poverty and unemployment. Urgent, joined up action by national and international policymakers is badly needed in response.”

Where most Western countries are putting the issue of the health and wellbeing of gamblers first in regulating gambling markets, Africa as a continent is struggling to do so – with South Africa currently the only fully regulated market to have had more time to try and combat this than neighbouring nations.

The Market Status

Africa is a large and complex place when it comes to retail sports betting, as it adapts to regulations being put in place in individual countries that are rapidly different from those of their neighbours in some cases. While retail sports betting has been a mainstay in some markets, much like it has in the UK, for many it is a new concept that does have to combat online betting. But, while online offers unlimited potential for growth in Africa, don’t rule out retail. It has always married itself to sports betting and, in Africa, there are myriad opportuinities for retail betting to blossom on the sporting trail.