Nigeria’s sports betting market is about to experience a huge transformation as Waxibet, a new entrant into the industry, is set to raise the bar of operations, in order to give existing companies a run for their money and ultimately, give betting enthusiasts an experience that worth its while. .
Waxibet, a gaming company founded in 2021 offers a variety of online games for its end users, including sports betting, virtual games and online Casino products. The company, through its head of business development Francis Ifie, revealed that it has now recently added betting opportunities for reality TV show BBNAIJA where users make predictions and stand a chance to win.
Addressing the Press via zoom, the Director of Waxibet Dr Fred Igbenedion said that the company after carefully carrying out its market survey, are harnessing better user experiences that could make betting easier and a lot more fun for the end users.
He said:
“This is indeed a special occasion because after carefully studying the various technological gaps in the Nigerian market sports betting market, our entire team embarked on a journey that took several months of hard work and dedication to bridge the gaps that we saw in the industry, especially as it relates to proper service delivery to our customers, and customer and durability. Playing games, we wanted to change the way sports catalogers approach betting in general by harnessing the user experience and making the entire process a lot more fun, exciting and rewarding. I am now very confident that our product can achieve this goal that we set out to achieve a few months ago.
Also, we have great plans to add even more unique features from watching will be presented today on our platform that has never been done before nor any other gaming company in this region. So really in for exciting times with the players and lastly, that is you have to take a knock, showing you that waxi is certainly here to stay and I hope that this is the beginning of a long and rewarding partnership between us and the community that is called the Assabet family”.
Also addressing the Press via zoom was the Director General of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC), Mr Lanre Gbajabiamila. In his remarks, he promises the startup company of complete support from the body as long as waxibet adheres in compliance with the regulations of the body. He advised that challenges should be communicated top the commission upfront and not the commission finding out about such challenges itself
He said:
“I want to take this opportunity again to wish you lots the best, your new idea will always just rattle in the Light in the Light of compliance. Wherever the commission is able to help wherever you have issues, it’s always good for you to let the commission know before the commission finds out. It’s not an easy industry. But I’m sure if you’ve been told the line of compliance and do the right thing, you shall succeed. This market is still big enough for everybody to tap into your community at the right time. So I wish you all the best management team owners to activate best of luck. God bless you.
Speaking on compliance, representing the Director general of the NLRC , Ms Nkiru Onuzulu, a deputy director and co-coordinator of the NLRC Lagos zonal office said that in ensuring compliance, the commission had established legal and administrative not only to bring defaulters to book but also to follow through the company to make sure that winners get their due reward. She said the commission established 14 different zonal offices in different states that the users could fall back to in case of any mishap. She said:
“Anything that has to do with the Lottery Business Regulation we are there to make sure that they do the right thing. NLRC has done so much in making such regulations into the lottery industry. Our Slogan is “lottery the right way”. We have been sensitizing people on what lottery means because in the past, lottery had been seen as a vice for fraud. The commission has established zonal offices in over 14 states that virtually cover all the states in the federation and we make sure things are done the right way. We attend events like this, which is like following through on each winner even up to the point that prices are won. We have to make sure that each winner gets their winnings and nobody is shortchanged. We have a lot of lawyers as staffers and a department that handles complaints. We also have the monitoring and enforcement department. We make sure that we bring to book whoever has erred and we have a program to ensure that these excesses are checkmated
Our being here today means waxi bet has done the right thing, so they have our approval to do what they want to do”.
Talking about the reason why betting has become such a lucrative industry in Nigeria, the Head of Business Development Francis Ifie ties the reason to three things. According to him, greed as a Nigerian factor rules the chart as to why the majority of Nigerians bet, followed by poverty and finally the love for football. The trio which Mr Francis says are interconnected is according to him a survey that was carried out at the beginning of the year.
He said:
“A survey was carried out as to why people always place bets in Nigeria , the first thing that came out surprisingly was greed, someone has 5000 naira and says I want more, then they go on sit and they play again. The second thing was poverty. Some people go to place bets because they just need that extra cash and there are lots of opportunities where you can put 100 naira and make 1000 naira and the third was the passion for sports. When you look at the three, they are interconnected because you know every Nigerian will always want more, every Nigerian loves sports. So when you look at all those it actually can be the entirety of why people bet on site as well. So I wouldn’t want to peg it on just poverty alone, but I will also want to peg it on passion for sports. All that, is what makes me think people bet”
About giving back to the society, Mr Francis Ifie said, the company intends to infiltrate the grassroots and especially alluring them with bonuses and gifts.
He said:
“For us at waxibet, we already have this plan in our pipeline, in our own csr that we are looking to have. We are looking at giving back to society primarily by supporting grassroots sporting events. Nigeria is a place filled with talents. We see this in how people p[predict sports matches as well. We are one of the smartest when it comes to predicting as was shown in one of the reports that were put out a few months ago. It shows that a lot of Nigerians are becoming smarter by the day. So what we are trying to do now is to showcase these talents. We give back to the society through giving out bonuses to the grassroots players. For instance, people who have forecasted the trickiest games, we have a price category so that they are all involved in whatever they do on our site as well. So we sponsor grassroots events, we engage a lot with all the people that use our platform through offering prices and gifts and I think as we continue to grow as a business, we can now put our hands on a lot of more things to give back further to the society”.
