The relentless involvement of betting companies in football has drawn a generation of young men into strongly associating their support for the game with gambling, leading to “dire consequence” for many a study has found. So we will be looking at what as lead to gambling addiction in Africa.
Passion for the game
Like every other part of the continent, the global audience for sports is soaring on a daily bases, particularly football in Africa becomes a daily activity for the young generation at every town in Africa. The passion for the game is visible and the entertainment attached to it. Significantly, since the emergence of betting on sports as create a source of entertainment. Win or lose, having a few bucks riding on an outcome adds a lot of excitement. With so many reputable bookmakers to choose from, wagering on sports is as convenient and easy as ever. These lead to the spurt of gambling players in the region people don’t tend to follow sports for the fun of it anymore but the opportunity of making money from the said sports.
African football players
Mainly, the departure of African football stars is leaving their local leagues in search of a global audience. Which comes along with media attention, good infrastructure, competitive leagues and financial stability has seen thousands of African players in all most every part of the European leagues and in recent time Asian leagues.
These have provided grounds for their adoration on the old continent, where fans can cheer on their local heroes in a setting where local fans forced to rely heavily on television coverage to follow the Performances of their countrymen.
This as influence the youth in the continent to develop more interest in gambling. As it is the case in Tanzania where Fans are lining up to watch the local hero Mbwana Ally Samatta which ply is football trade in Aston Villa football club in England has increased the youth participation with gambling.
The explosion in marketing
Africa is home to sports betting business in recent time; the rising numbers of operators
are evident that local operators have targeted the young people with there explosive marketing strategy. For example, during a live English premier league matches and Champions League competitions a host of the betting company as targeted this event with their explosive marketing at the same time some as target the social media with their marketing strategy all this as induce gambling addiction in Africa.
Sponsorship
Local operators as also key themselves into some of the programs that attract massive audience and viewership in Africa through sponsorship of such events. For example, the Nigeria local operator Bet9ja sponsored the 2019 edition of Big Brother Nigeria; some of these programs have massive followership in Nigeria and beyond. Finally, the gambling industry will continue to expand in Africa as long as these significant aspects are still in existence. Still, the question is how are will doing anything to solve gambling addiction in Africa. Time will tell.
