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Online Gambling in Africa

There is an enormous interest in online gambling from all around the big African continent. Although gambling remains illegal in some states such as Somalia, there are many others states where gambling is perfectly legal. According to the Quran, gambling is a sin, so you can find similar bans in other Muslim-majority countries.

Egypt is an interesting example of a mixture between legality and illegality though. While Egyptians themselves can’t gamble (except for participating in the state lottery), foreigners are free to engage in it and the North African state accommodates them with lavish casinos.

Our focus, however, is online gambling. The last decade has seen the African online gambling industry expanding with the speed of light. In this article, we will tell you more about how that happened and what the current state of online gambling markets is, and what’s expected to happen in the future.

A Lucrative Market

There are many factors which led to the expansion of the online gambling industry of Africa. Perhaps the most significant one is the growth of various state economies on the continent. Many African countries experience unprecedent levels of economic success, which allow for new industries to pop up. There’s also a shared enthusiasm for creating new businesses and big populations that can sustain them.

A lot of African entrepreneurs are riding this wave of success, but they’re not the only ones. The exponential and sustained growth of African economies also caught the eye of foreign investors who now view the African market as stable to invest in. Online gambling operators are no different.

This is especially true for foreign companies with platforms offering sports betting since sports betting is the most popular form of gambling in Africa. Africans love their football (who can blame them) and they apparently love betting on football as well. Most of the punters are young people, which is good news for online gambling companies, because 35% of those living in Africa (or 420 million people) are between the ages of 15 and 35.

Another reason why investors are currently pursuing projects in Africa is due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The African continent, despite its enormous size, is the least affected by the virus. Thus, foreign investors are taking on a lesser risk by investing in African industries, which have suffered and continue to suffer far fewer losses than their European and Asian counterparts.

A few African countries took note of this and used the pandemic to regulate gambling. Ghana, for example, legalized sports betting, while Tanzania expanded its gambling market by adding virtual sports betting to it. In addition, Kenya lowered its betting tax to 7.5% to attract operators after a heated debate surrounding gambling taxation. We suspect other countries would follow suit once they see how gambling enriches their neighbors.

And the Winner Is…

In this section, we will take a look at African countries, which have greatly benefited by allowing or showing inclination to allow online gambling within their borders.

Malawi

Malawi used to be the outlier in terms of gambling. The Southeast African country has had a booming gambling industry for decades now. In 1996, Malawi created the Malawi Gaming Board, which kickstarted the process of introducing different forms of gambling to its citizens.

Now, the country is in the process of expanding its industry even more. Since the internet wasn’t what it is now at the time when Malawi made gambling legal, legislators are looking for ways to regulate it. Currently, online gambling is not regulated, so it’s technically not illegal. The Malawian government, however, has expressed support for outright legalizing online gambling.

Nigeria

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, so it’s no surprise that it has one of the biggest gambling industries. According to reports, as many as 60% of Nigerians (or 120 million) bet every year. Online gambling is legal and regulated in the country. Moreover, online gambling is not location-based meaning that Nigerian players can bet at both local and foreign online casinos.

South Africa

The Southern-most country on the continent accounts for 50% of Africa’s gambling revenue. Yes, you heard that right! Interestingly, South Africa formally banned gambling all the way back in the 1600’s, but it changed course in 1994 by overruling the ban, which was sealed two years later by adopting the National Gambling Act. Following laws also relaxed gambling regulations.

However, the country still has to relax some of its online gambling regulations. The current situation is murky in terms of online gambling. While an act from 2008 was meant to legalize online gambling, it was never ratified, which left players and operators hanging. In 2010, the government also banned South Africans from playing in overseas online casinos.

Although it’s currently only legal to bet on sports online, South Africa might be inclined to change that soon. A few research papers on local gambling have shown its exponential growth, while gambling lobbyists give examples with other African countries that have legal and successful online gambling industries.

Macau – A Paradise for Casinos and Players Alike

If you are a seasoned player or someone working in the sphere of gambling, there’s no way you’ve never heard of Macau. “The Last Vegas of the East”, as it is endearingly referred as, actually makes six times the revenue that Las Vegas does.

Macau is an administrative region of the People’s Republic of China. This special status allows it to maintain separate economic and governing systems to that of mainland China.

Due to the unique arrangements, Macau was able to create a so-called haven for gambling companies and enthusiasts. It currently has the largest gaming industry in the world and gambling contributes the most towards Macau’s $53.9 billion GDP. This number is spectacular when you account for the fact that Macau only has 682,800 citizens.

Despite the prosperity that gambling brought to Macau, its gambling industry might experience changes. China has recently criticized Macau’s gambling operations and many people fears that the criticism would translate to harsh regulations that can forever change Macau.

Macau and China

Let us give you some information as to why everyone is concerned about the future of Macau and its status as the top gambling venue of the world. Although Macau has some of the most relaxed laws concerning gambling, it still requires valid operating licenses issued by their gaming authority.

The current licenses are set to expire in March 2022. This means that now is the time to make changes if any are to be made, and China seems to think there should be such. Lately, Chinese authorities have been regulating various businesses, but what’s concerning is that they have set their eyes on Macau this time.

As we previously mentioned, Macau has a special status, which allows it some grade of autonomy, and thus, China is seen as overstepping the boundaries. However, as we learnt with the failure of the “Free Hong Kong” initiative, China can overstep the boundaries that it had set for administrative regions in the past.

Mainland China is critical of Macau’s way of governing and doesn’t like the fact that its economy is so intimately tied to gambling. Gambling is in fact illegal in China, so their dislike is natural. Chinese Authorities want to change the face of Macau, but it might be hard considering 70 to 80% of Macau’s GDP comes from gambling and that Macau itself is the size of Manhattan.

However, let us cut China some slack here. There are legitimate reasons why relying solely on gambling can be bad. For instance, many locals choose to drop out of university to pursue career in the casino industry, which means there would be fewer other professionals in the future.

Moreover, many stores and restaurants have closed down because they can’t compete with the lucrative salaries that casinos offer. In addition, casino resorts in the city only generate profit from the casinos and not from their hotels as most tourists are day-trippers who rarely go there for anything but gambling.

There is also the issue of crime. Crime has skyrocketed in Macau for the last 20 years, during which Macau became the gambling capital of the world. This is in part for the casinos themselves, but also because the wealth gap has widened for this period. Despite the high GDP per capita, poverty is not a thing of the past in Macau.

Recent Developments

Now that we have established various factors relating to gambling in Macau, let us explore the recent developments in the saga that kickstarted the campaign to change the Las Vegas of the East.

The main sign of trouble came when Alvin Chau was arrested in November 2021. Chau is the chairman of Suncity Group Holdings, a company offering casino tours to wealthy Asian clients. He is charged with fraud and money laundering on the accusation that he operated a cross-border syndicate that lured Chinese people into gambling in Macau, thus acting as a loophole to the ban on gambling in China.

Suncity Group shares were immediately pulled of the stock market. Chau’s arrest, however, also affected the stocks of the five operators in Macau, and they’ve been plummeting ever since.

In response to the scandal, Macau’s secretary for economy and finance, Lei Wai Nong, said that the city is looking into ways to better regulate the industry. A few days later, it was announced that casinos would be no longer allowed to offer big credits to VIP clients from China in a bid to curb Chinese interest in Macau.

Final Thoughts

It seems like Macau is indeed heading towards more regulations, but this isn’t necessarily bad. While some bad prophets are calling the changes the end of Macau, it could actually be the beginning of a new era where gambling is highly available but not on the price of every other industry failing.

British Bookmakers Hit by High Taxes

UK gambling giants Ladbrokes and William Hill released their financial results for 2015 last week. Not a surprise for anyone following the news that both were hit hard by the freshly implemented UK point-of-consumption tax (POCT). If you are not in the know, let me quickly bring you up to speed. The 15% tax applies to all bets placed from the UK, regardless of where the operator of the service is based. Prior to 2015 this was not the case and online gambling in Britain was regulated at the point of supply and not of consumption. After some serious battling from the side of gambling operators, the tax was finally implemented in late 2014. This year we are seeing the first results for bookmakers.

British Bookmakers Hit by High TaxesLooking at the online performance of the operators, Ladbrokes dipped £23.8m down compared to last year and for William Hills that is £126.5m (representing 29% drop in profit). Let’s analyse the results for each operator and try draw some conclusions.

For Ladbrokes the change was quite big in a negative way – a staggering £20.7m loss was reported last Tuesday, compared to the £17.3m profit for 2014. The operator assigned some of the drop to higher expenses in marketing, but still, the results are quite appalling. The increase in machine gaming duty (MGD) for land-based gambling from 20% to 25% in the UK has also had its share. On the bright side however, the online side of the business has grown 13% to £242.8m and presently represents 20% of Ladbrokes net revenue of £1.2bn.

In the case of William Hill, who made their financial results public on Friday, there were a total of 108 shops closed in land, to try and compensate for the losses due to the new taxations introduced. In a similar manner though, regardless of the losses suffered overall, the sales online skyrocketed 147% to £126.1m. This was a significant boost and a large percentage of the total operating profit, which if we were to not count the duties would have totaled at £291.4m.

If we were to imagine the results of both before and after the new tax implemented, we can easily see the significance of the difference.

Wiliam Hill
Net revenue with POCT £550.7m ↑4%
Net revenue without POCT £648m ↑23%
Ladbrokes
Net revenue with POCT £242.8m ↑13%
Net revenue without POCT £286m ↑33%

To do the maths for the British government, from those two bookmakers alone, they have pocketed £140.5m. It will be interesting to see if the results for the rest of the UK based operators will reflect similar tendencies. Important to note is also that this is the last year we will have to compare an year without the new tax being in place to an year where it has been. In 2017 we will be looking at two full years of POCT. As it stands it seems that operators will be focusing on online gambling as it seems to be one that is keeping the numbers in the green.

The Merger between Coral and Ladbrokes

Strange things are happening in the world of bookmakers at the moment. Sworn enemies are suddenly expressing a new found fondness for each other. It’s almost as if we have time travelled back to the 1960’s and are experiencing a new summer of love.

The news about the proposed merger between Coral and Ladbrokes comes soon after Paddy Power and Betfair overcame their regulatory hurdles and joined forces. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority cleared the deal in December and the first shares in Paddy Power Betfair plc were listed for trading on the London Stock Exchange and Irish Stock Exchange on February 2nd 2016.

The £5 billion-plus merger between Betfair and Paddy Power was announced in August, with shareholders of both firms giving their approval in December. Paddy Power shareholders will own 52 per cent of the new business, with the remainder held by Betfair.

The merger between Coral and Ladbrokes is however likely to attract much more restrictions and attention due to the market share a deal between the two companies would obtain.

The UK’s competition regulator has already expressed concern and stated in its initial investigation that a merger would create a “substantial lessening of competition” within fixed odds betting on the high street. The regulator agreed to “fast track” its second part of the investigation, which will focus on the impact on local competition for sportsbook operators.

Coral and LadbrokesCertainly not everyone is happy, many players fear that the merger between Coral and Ladbrokes will lead to an inferior betting bonus offer for new customers. Others think that existing bonuses will be drastically reduced due to the lack of competition within the industry. Some are questioning if the merger will mean less variance in the odds that are available both in shops and online.

Many of Ladbrokes shareholders are also not too enthusiastic about the potential marriage of two of the biggest names in betting. Dermot Desmond who is an International Investment and Underwriting Consultant and also a shareholder in Ladbrokes has launched a campaign “say no to Coral”. He has also written an impassioned letter to all Ladbrokes shareholders explaining why this merger is particularly bad for Ladbrokes.

Mr Desmond is particularly stinging in his assessment, “Ladbrokes has a great brand but, unlike Coral, has failed to migrate its customers online. Ladbrokes needs a new management team to achieve this. However, giving away half your company and taking on over £800m of debt is a very expensive way to recruit a quality management team.”

Mr Desmond also insinuates that the stock market is also against the merger with his comment, “Since the announcement on 24 July, the Ladbrokes share price has fallen 16% from 130p to 109p, wiping out a further c. £200m in shareholder value, indicating the market’s view on the proposed transaction. In contrast, since the announcement of the Paddy Power/Betfair merger, their share prices have increased 35% and 20% respectively.”

Some of the biggest winners out of this merger may well be direct competitors of Coral and Ladbrokes. Companies such as Betfred, Paddy Power and Boylesports will be rubbing their hand in glee if, as expected, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority forces them to sell off between 400 and 1,000 betting shops. This sell off is likely to be below market price and when you consider that a quarter of Coral’s profits are realised from the highly controversial Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBT) in their shops, this may just be the start of Coral and Ladbrokes’ problems, not the end of them!

McDonald’s Employees Used Company Money for Casino

If someone comes up to you and says “Yo, man, give me a couple thousand pounds, I’ll just hop by the casino across the street and win some cash and then I’ll return it to you”, your first response probably shouldn’t be “That’s a great idea, why didn’t I think of that!” Sadly, two workers at McDonald’s Oxford Street branch had to learn this important life lesson the hard way after being caught taking money from the safe and handing them over to friends, who proceeded to place high-rolling bets in the Genting Club across the street. After they won, they would keep the earnings for themselves before returning the original amount to be placed back in the safe, leaving no one the wiser. If you have even a little bit of common sense, you’d soon realize that this plan has one fatal flaw – once the casino players begin losing money, which would inevitably happen no matter how good you are, the entire scam would be uncovered. Surprise surprise, this is exactly what happened – once the two employees found themselves unable to return the appropriate amount into the safe, they were quickly caught by the van driver charged with transporting the amount. Hurray for security cameras, catching idiotic employees in the act since 1942!

Casino hallAs soon as they found out about what had been going on, the management immediately sacked the two employees before filing charges against them. Their identities haven’t been confirmed, as the investigators have left the matter largely in the hands of McDonald’s, who appear to have decided not to press charges. Had they opted to go to court, the employees would’ve faced hefty fines or even jail time if (or rather, when) they were found guilty. “It was pretty stupid. They were always going to get caught once they started losing”, an employee of McDonald’s and a (now former) colleague of the perpetrators said. Apparently everyone at the restaurant knew what the two had been doing, claiming that such mishandling of money by the two employees “had been happening regularly”. The firing of the employees was confirmed by a McDonald’s spokesperson, who also stated that an internal investigation was currently underway to determine just how much money was missing (the amount is speculated to be in the thousands, but that has yet to be confirmed).

Remember, children – always play casino with your own money. The satisfaction is greater, the risks are lower (the worst that can happen is you lose some money – at least you won’t go to jail) and, most importantly, it won’t require you to work at McDonald’s. Now get out there and enjoy some casino games with money that hasn’t been stolen from your company’s safe!

Bwin To Merge With GVC, Rejecting 888 Holdings Offer

In the world of online betting and casino, companies merge all the time. Considering how competitive the market is and just how many companies have a hand in the iGaming pie, that’s not exactly surprising. Once companies start getting too many to sustain a viable market environment, some of them need to go, and buyouts are a way to do that in which everyone wins. Coral merged with Ladbrokes, Betfair merged with Paddy Power (most likely to create Betty Power, as Paddy Power’s Twitter quipped), and now Bwin (also spelled bwin), owners of FoxyBingo, PartyPoker and PartyCasino (among others), are on the fast track to merge with GVC (owners of big bookies and casino sites like SportingBet and Casino Club) after the latter made a £1.1 billion offer.

The betting war between 888 Holdings and GVC has been going on for quite a while now. As the Guardian reported, at one point 888 were even sure that they would win, but ultimately it wasn’t meant to be, with GVC increasing their offer to the aforementioned sum and offering substantial benefits. Not content with that turn of events, 888 continued to increase their offer, claiming that in the long run there would be more benefits, but Bwin just couldn’t afford to wait that long if they wanted to keep all of their staff employed (which, honestly, is quite understandable and commendable). At the end of the day, Bwin employs over 2,000 people on 3 continents, so letting even just 10% or 20% go would still mean hundreds of people left jobless, which wasn’t an ideal scenario for anybody.

Casino warsPhilip Yea, chairman of Bwin, shared his difficulty with choosing between the bidders, implying that it was really a question of potential long-term benefits from 888 and guaranteed short-term ones from GVC. “It really has been a question of balancing some very fine judgments at the margin”, he explained. It’s important to note that the modern version of Bwin was already created from a merger between the old version and Party Gaming, so the management staff have experience with this sort of thing and we should presume that they were fully aware of all the implications and complications picking GVC over 888 would have in the next 5 to 10 years.

According to many (experts and players alike), 888 is considered to be the best online casino, overshadowing even older giants such as William Hill and Ladbrokes. 888’s expansion was quick and violent, with the company climbing up to the top in only 18 years – significantly shorter than it took the over 80 year old William Hill. As such, it’s a rather safe bet that Bwin would’ve been in pretty good hands with them. But, as stated above, accepting 888’s (smaller) offer would’ve meant releasing a part of Bwin’s staff. So despite the fact that their future might be a little bit harder (though of course that’s not a given – GVC have also proven themselves to be quite reliable), Bwin really deserve a round of applause for placing their employees first and foremost.

Get to Know me – Who’s Behind Africa Investor?

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog!

My name is Randall Riley and I was born on 7th January 1973 in Burnley, UK.I have a bachelor’s degree in Economics and MBA with specialization in international business.

I’ve been involved in the online Forex world for the last couple of years and the main reason for that is my current job position – I work as a Foreign Currency and Investment Advisor for a Forex advisory company.

What Excites Me about Forex Markets?

Investment opportunities

My career as an Investment Advisor is both exciting and fast-paced. As you know, the currency markets work 24/7 and sometimes it requires working extra hours and thus I don’t have regular working time. However, the environment is pretty challenging and dynamic, which is the best part. Some of the things that I find most exciting about my career is the connection with the global financial markets. The action-packed atmosphere is quite appealing to me, so it was easy to take this path.

Three Reasons to Start Forex Trading and Why I Started a Blog

Forex Markets can be a very profitable niche to trade on, you just have to know how to trade with different currencies. I’ll list you three reasons why you should consider investing in FX.

  • The Market is open 24/7 – there are no boundaries in front of you, the market never sleeps and you can enter it and trade any time you wish.
  • Unlimited winning potential – it is basically the largest market in the world and you can enter it any time as long as you have internet connection. Merely £1.5 trillions have been turned over every day, so the profit chances are limitless!
  • You’re not dependent on the market conditions – once you buy a currency, depending on the market conditions you can choose whether to buy it or sell it.

Forex trading is the perfect niche for extra investments and making some good profits. I decided to start a forex blog, where I can share my experience as a professional financial advisor and help other financial enthusiasts explore more investment opportunities. I will regularly publish news, related to forex trading forecasts and predictions and you will get the best tips how to succeed on the market.

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