bet9ja.com
By Alexis Akwagyiram and Didi Akinyelure

LAGOS, June 25 (Reuters) - Online sports betting wagering is growing in soccer-mad Nigeria mainly thanks to payment systems established by homegrown technology companies that are beginning to make online businesses more practical.
bet9ja.com
For many years, mobile payments failed to take off in Nigeria as they have in nations such as Kenya, where Safaricom's M-Pesa money transfers have actually promoted a culture of cashless payments.

Fear of electronic fraud and sluggish web speeds have held Nigerian online consumers back however sports betting companies says the new, fast digital payment systems underpinning their sites are changing attitudes towards online transactions.

"We have actually seen significant development in the number of payment services that are offered. All that is certainly altering the video gaming area," stated Seun Anibaba, CEO of Lagos State Lotteries Board, video gaming regulator in Nigeria's business capital.

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

That growth has been matched by a rise in web payments, according to information from the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), which is owned by the reserve bank and certified banks.

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 almost 190 million, increasing cellphone usage and falling information costs, Nigeria has actually long been viewed as an excellent opportunity for online businesses - once customers feel comfortable with electronic payments.
bet9ja.com
Online sports betting companies state that is taking place, though reaching the tens of millions of Nigerians without access to banking services stays an obstacle for pure online merchants.

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

"There is a gradual shift to online now, that is where the market is going," Betway's Nigeria manager Lere Awokoya said.

"The growth in the number of fintechs, and the federal government as an enabler, has helped business to flourish. These technological shifts encouraged Betway to start running in Nigeria," he said.

FINTECH COMPETITION

sports betting companies cashing in on the soccer frenzy worked up by participation worldwide Cup state they are discovering the payment systems produced by regional start-ups such as Paystack are showing popular online.

Paystack and another local startup Flutterwave, both founded in 2016, are providing competitors for Nigeria's Interswitch which was established in 2002 and was the main platform utilized by companies running in Nigeria.
bet9ja.com
"We added Paystack as one of our payment options with no fanfare, without revealing to our clients, and within a month it soared to the number one most used payment choice on the site," said Akin Alabi, founder of NairabBET.

He said NairaBET, the country's second biggest sports betting firm, now had 2 million regular customers on its website, up from 500,000 in 2013, and Paystack stayed the most popular payment option considering that it was added in late 2017.

Paystack was established by two Nigerian computer science graduates, Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi, who received early stage financing in Silicon Valley's Y-Combinator programme.

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

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

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

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

Paystack stated it allows payments for a number of sports betting companies but likewise a large range of organizations, from utility services to transport companies to insurance company Axa Mansard.

Flutterwave, co-founded by Nigerian business owner Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, is also backed by the Y-Combinator program in addition to investor 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 coincided with the arrival of foreign financiers intending to tap into sports betting.

Industry experts state 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 company launched in 2015.

NairaBET's Alabi stated its sales were split in between shops and online however the ease of electronic payments, expense of running shops and capability for clients to prevent the preconception of sports betting in public meant online deals would grow.

But despite advances in digital payments, Kunle Soname - chairman and co-founder of Bet9ja - said it was important to have a shop network, not least due to the fact that lots of consumers still remain reluctant to spend online.

He said the business, with about 60 percent of Nigeria's sports betting wagering market, had a substantial network. Nigerian sports betting shops often function as social hubs where consumers can watch soccer totally free of charge while putting bets.

At a BetKing hall deep inside the dynamic Oshodi market in Lagos, lots of soccer fans collected to view Nigeria's final heat up video game before the World Cup.
bet9ja.com
Richard Onuka, a factory employee who earns 25,000 naira a month, was focused on a television screen inside. He stated he began sports betting three months back and bets up to 1,000 naira a day.

"Since I have actually been playing I have actually not won anything but I think that a person day I will win," stated Onuka. ($1 = 314.5000 naira) (Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram and Didi Akinyelure in Lagos