Why the Reluctance?

[Davidvictorson]

Sports betting is not illegal in my country. According to some key gambling and betting statistics^1,2:

• There are over 60 million active gamblers.
• $2 billion is spent on gambling everyday
• 53% of people in my country bet at least once per day. Our population is around 200 million people.
• There are 14 million bet stakes and payments that are made over the internet every day
• and others

We are actually a gambling nation and the market is highly profitable. I wonder why despite these statistics, yet some sport betting and casino sites haven't taken advantage of it. As I conducted my research, I noticed that some casinos don't offer or no longer offers their services to people in my country. There are other countries with similar situation too. And it begs the question: why the reluctance? Such hesitation seems out of place in a country where gambling is legal.

1 https://www.betensured.com/blog/top-10-nigeria-gambling-statistics/
2 https://www.noi-polls.com/post/gambling-and-betting-poll-2019

[SamReomo]

It depends on the provider I guess, some providers don't allow members from a few countries to take part in betting and that's why they haven't allowed sports betting in your country. You may try different casinos or different providers to see if they also don't allow sports betting in your country or they allow it. If all casinos and most providers don't allow sports betting in your country then something might be stopping them to disallow it.

[Cantsay]

If all casinos and most providers don't allow sports betting in your country then something might be stopping them to disallow it.

The question now is “what?” What exactly is stopping them from providing their service?

From what I know there’s no law in Nigeria that prohibits gambling so I don’t see any reason why a gambling site would prevent Nigerians from accessing their site. I have encountered this issue several times, even in some site that I just want to try it so that I’d have an idea of how they operate - the most recent one was “nitrobetting”, I know I have visited that site several times to read some of their articles they drop concerning bets and all of a sudden I’m being prevented from accessing the site. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

[swogerino]

I think that is a government decision on taxing which can bring such results as where I live now despite a small number of habitants compared to your country I have seen here them to be almost 100% gamblers or in high favor of gambling.The government took a massive campaign of banning every casino except the big one first,then the other two bigs after that,they are the only ones operating now and generate much more profit to the state as everyone goes there to play.So maybe some casinos which don't offer you sport betting maybe they are not happy with government taxes.

[Lucius]

Perhaps the problem is that in some countries there are certain laws and regulations that do not suit some casinos, which is why they do not want or cannot legally perform their activities in them. If a country is extremely focused on online gambling, as the OP says, it would not make sense for an online casino to refuse to provide its services in such a country and give up a significant profit.

Obviously, there is some kind of obstacle that they can't/don't want to cross, and the only way is to try to contact these online casinos and ask them an official question.

[Accardo]

It depends on the provider I guess, some providers don't allow members from a few countries to take part in betting and that's why they haven't allowed sports betting in your country. You may try different casinos or different providers to see if they also don't allow sports betting in your country or they allow it. If all casinos and most providers don't allow sports betting in your country then something might be stopping them to disallow it.

Yeah, the gaming providers decides which region is eligible to play their games. It's not just about the statistics, some highly reputable countries with such statistics are restricted as well. The gaming providers have their reasons for that, which I'm not sure of, have not read much on that. But looking deep in the casino's Terms and Conditions you'd see a list of restricted countries that can't participate in games provided by some specific software providers. It's just as simple as going to another casino where Nigeria is accepted and enjoy your games. Additionally, the government of the country can influence the reason why the country is restricted. Not every government allow all games to be played by their country people. Despite having a rule that legalizes gambling.

[alani123]

Because Nigeria has its own licensing scheme and I guess certain casinos would rather block Nigerians completely rather than being sanctioned or asked to pay fines. Maybe in future they could consider having a legitimate presence in the country and for that to ever happen they need a clean record. Otherwise it would ruin their brand and make it unusable in the local market.

But the one to blame here are not the individual casinos that are blocking Nigerian IP addresses. It's the politicians that hand out licenses to casinos without much thought. Think about it, would you say that every locally licensed casino is better than the ones advertised here? Most probably no. And yet what do we see happening? A few rich people in each country start offshores and buy a casino license to just milk the locals. Profits end up untaxed and funneled through offshore accounts mostly. This process only enriches the politicians and makes access available only to some sub-par casinos that usually aren't even provably fair.

[Viscore]

It could be a license issue that they can't afford to pay. Bigger market probably demand bigger lincense fee because the potential income is higher or it could be that the competition is really stiff that they feel they are spending more than they could potentially earn. Big casinos or sportsbook will probably venture on that as they are more liquid so they could expand more.

[Oshosondy]

Hope you are not using an IP address with US location? Or the location of the country that the gambling site restricted?

It is good to also read the restricted countries on the gambling site ToS.

I have noticed that you will see some countries that are accepted on a gambling site but not accept on another gambling site. This is because of the gambling regulations the country has that the gambling site do not want to abide to.

[Crypt0Gore]

If all casinos and most providers don't allow sports betting in your country then something might be stopping them to disallow it.

The question now is “what?” What exactly is stopping them from providing their service?

From what I know there’s no law in Nigeria that prohibits gambling so I don’t see any reason why a gambling site would prevent Nigerians from accessing their site. I have encountered this issue several times, even in some site that I just want to try it so that I’d have an idea of how they operate - the most recent one was “nitrobetting”, I know I have visited that site several times to read some of their articles they drop concerning bets and all of a sudden I’m being prevented from accessing the site. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

You aren't following up, it is becoming a big concern to the government about how billions of naira is going into gambling in Nigeria, I heard it myself and they promise to make it stop, someway or somehow, they never said.

Maybe they will start doing the same shit they do with Binance exchange who knows? If the government of the country reaches out to the popular online gambling platform to not render their services to Nigerians or risk facing the law do you think that it won't work? It will work bro.


The government is worried, too many citizens of Nigeria are into gambling and most of them are losing tons of money to those gambling companies, every casinos online and offline want to make money, they don't have any reasons not to provide their services to any country unless there is a issue.

[Jawhead999]

You should already know the answer.

According to a 2018 estimate in The World Factbook by the CIA, the population is estimated to be 53.5% Muslim, 45.9% Christian (10.6% Roman Catholic and 35.3% Protestant and other Christian), and 0.6% as other.

Gambling is a sin for Muslim, how you can expect a country that dominated by people who're against gambling will legalize gambling? even they legalize it, they only allow foreigners to gamble and forbid local people to gamble.

People will still gamble even though they live in a restricted countries, just like the statistic you provided above. Why the police didn't catch every people who gamble on your country? because it's time consuming and their jail can't handle 50% of the population, the country will broke too due to giving free money for prisoners and less workers.

[cabron]

Because Nigeria has its own licensing scheme and I guess certain casinos would rather block Nigerians completely rather than being sanctioned or asked to pay fines. Maybe in future they could consider having a legitimate presence in the country and for that to ever happen they need a clean record. Otherwise it would ruin their brand and make it unusable in the local market.

But the one to blame here are not the individual casinos that are blocking Nigerian IP addresses. It's the politicians that hand out licenses to casinos without much thought. Think about it, would you say that every locally licensed casino is better than the ones advertised here? Most probably no. And yet what do we see happening? A few rich people in each country start offshores and buy a casino license to just milk the locals. Profits end up untaxed and funneled through offshore accounts mostly. This process only enriches the politicians and makes access available only to some sub-par casinos that usually aren't even provably fair.

Probably true. They were sanctioning Binance off $10B recently which is too preposterous to begin with. Betting platform asking for License in their country might also have to pay a large sum for it.

But I don't think they need a betting platform from other countries now, Nigeria has its own. What they need is more users from other countries to play on their platforms. The countries like Soccer, if the promote the sport widely which the whole world also likes Soccer, they could extract more money from the outside.

[Coin_trader]

why the reluctance? Such hesitation seems out of place in a country where gambling is legal.

Most of the time this is due to the license issue. Maybe your government ask a different terms which license provider can’t meet on their side that’s why some casino choose not to go further even though there’s a good market in your country.

We can use USA as an example, There’s a lot of gamblers in there while gambling is allowed but they have their own gambling regulator that doesn’t allowed foreign license to operate in their country.

Probably the probably the problem relies on your country regulations and requirements for foreign casino operators.

[Sunderland]

Sports betting is not illegal in my country. According to some key gambling and betting statistics^1,2:

• There are over 60 million active gamblers.
• $2 billion is spent on gambling everyday
• 53% of people in my country bet at least once per day. Our population is around 200 million people.
• There are 14 million bet stakes and payments that are made over the internet every day
• and others

We are actually a gambling nation and the market is highly profitable. I wonder why despite these statistics, yet some sport betting and casino sites haven't taken advantage of it. As I conducted my research, I noticed that some casinos don't offer or no longer offers their services to people in my country. There are other countries with similar situation too. And it begs the question: why the reluctance? Such hesitation seems out of place in a country where gambling is legal.

Because the foreign/local online casino must obtain a license from the Nigeria gaming commission before they are able to operating in Nigeria.
and:

The legal games are lottery, land-based casino, and sports betting. Roulette, dice games, and non-skilled card games are illegal.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambling_in_Nigeria

Perhaps that is a reason why some of the casino providers dont want to apply/extend a license there, because live casino games, original games and maybe slots too are considered illegal there.

[stadus]

You should already know the answer.

According to a 2018 estimate in The World Factbook by the CIA, the population is estimated to be 53.5% Muslim, 45.9% Christian (10.6% Roman Catholic and 35.3% Protestant and other Christian), and 0.6% as other.

Gambling is a sin for Muslim, how you can expect a country that dominated by people who're against gambling will legalize gambling? even they legalize it, they only allow foreigners to gamble and forbid local people to gamble.

People will still gamble even though they live in a restricted countries, just like the statistic you provided above. Why the police didn't catch every people who gamble on your country? because it's time consuming and their jail can't handle 50% of the population, the country will broke too due to giving free money for prisoners and less workers.

He stated that it's not illegal in his country, so why would you assume that because majority of the popular are Muslim it's likely attributed to that. They can still serve the 45.9 percent which are Christians and maybe gambling is also a sin but it's strictly implemented unlike in other religions.

If there's an opportunity to make money, the operators will try to find a way to run their business, maybe some have succeed because they have enough capital or they see it as a big opportunity, while others would choose to run their casino in other countries. Besides, online casinos can cater volume of people from different countries, so they'll not be run out of customers.

[_act_]

You aren't following up, it is becoming a big concern to the government about how billions of naira is going into gambling in Nigeria, I heard it myself and they promise to make it stop, someway or somehow, they never said.

Let your government in Nigeria be deceiving you. What proof do they have? Most Nigerians are using local gambling sites. You can even see that on this forum as some of Nigerian posters will win betting and post the image they snapped on the gambling site here. You will see that it is their local gambling site that they are using most.

[irhact]

 With what you've specified, I think a lot of gambling companies would want to offer services from bettors in that region but their are many things that would be hindering them, despite the population and the amount spent on gambling, for instance they might not fall in line with the taxation policy of your government that alone hinders a lot of companies from doing business in many countries.

 Secondly is the regulation or fines form your country doesn't align with that of the company then they won't want to invest or do business in such country. But I believe there are many betting companies operating in Nigeria and I'm aware that the competition is very though over there among different betting companies but one of the most outstanding betting company over there is sporty bet.

[Yatsan]

If you are referring to sports providers outside your country then I guess there's a restriction for them, assuming. But if it is with providers inside your country, then one guess of mine is that competition is already big and they might probably be focusing on other industries. Makes sense right? As you've mentioned, there are no tight and clear restrictions for gambling providers then I assume that there is a large number of online gambling platforms already which makes it hard for new ones to have a spotlight or first ones to maintain their spots. Also to the same extent, what's the sense looking for non existing platforms if there are ones which are present? Not to be offensive but am I not right on this?

With what you've specified, I think a lot of gambling companies would want to offer services from bettors in that region but their are many things that would be hindering them, despite the population and the amount spent on gambling, for instance they might not fall in line with the taxation policy of your government that alone hinders a lot of companies from doing business in many countries.

 Secondly is the regulation or fines form your country doesn't align with that of the company then they won't want to invest or do business in such country. But I believe there are many betting companies operating in Nigeria and I'm aware that the competition is very though over there among different betting companies but one of the most outstanding betting company over there is sporty bet.

Also the idea of not being illegal is different from being supported by governments of course. This concerns requirements and things to comply for providers to run their platforms, which I think something to be considered as well on this discussion.

[Strongkored]

That's not a surprising thing actually, because there are several things that underlie it, for example in slot games it will depend on the slot provider in a particular country, it is available but it may not be in your country and maybe for sports betting it is a casino licensing factor although I'm not really sure about this.
The opposite happens in my country, I don't know for sure how many millions of people use online casinos, but gambling in my country is illegal, but many online casinos do not include my country as a prohibited list, and the government only takes precautions by blocking them through internet provider services.

[Hispo]

I am not an expert on the matter of how gambling is supposed to work in other countries like Nigeria. But if I had to guess, I would say some providers and online casinos simply feel more comfortable with keeping their opperations within specific jurisdictions and away from other jurisdictions.
It could be about the perception the international community has over the country in question and it's government, it could be also about how international regulations could impact on the casino if they decided to provide their services to the people of that country.

By the way, I knew there were many gamblers in Nigeria. But having such a huge percentage of people who gambles also in such an often manner is something I had not heard about before. Not doubt about Nigeria being a country of gamblers... I wonder how it could possibly affect the social development of people, to be so immersed in gambling.