How Gaming Operators Could Restrategize Football Betting Offering in Africa

Africa has been regarded as one of the emerging markets for the gaming industry. In the last couple of years, sports betting, especially football betting is the mainstream business for the young bettors in Africa to venturing into outside the formal economy. As a result, operators in the industry focus their business offering on this said football which is becoming saturated in recent years.

For the long-term growth of the gaming industry, stakeholders and operators need to consider recalibrating their business engagement. For Africa to transform into a full-scale industry from emerging to developed market, they are still a lot of work that needs attention. Still, the most pressing issue is converting football-centric players to other products as betting on football becomes a norm. Undoubtedly, the love-affair for major European leagues by young Africans has been a testament to the growth of sports betting and departure of local African players moving to these leagues as aided the widespread.

However, finding a profound solution and for the gambling industry to be a full-blown industry to reach its potentials, gaming operators must educate players on the basics of betting on particular offerings they tend to offer their customers.

For instance, Basketball, Table Tennis, Lawn Tennis, Rugby, Cricket, horseracing, and online casino games have their fair share of the market. South Africa is a clerical example of Rugby’s popularization, Cricket, and horseracing. It’s widely followed. Also, in Nigeria, Table Tennis, Basketball, Boxing has their followers apart from football.

Furthermore, eSports betting is one of the sectors that need attention. Even though the Covid-19 lockdown in Africa and the suspension of major European leagues was a massive blow to the gaming industry, operators who rely on football activities were severely impaired. Although, betting companies recalibrate their service by offering eSports betting and simulated virtual leagues to their customers. This did not get the desired result as many sports betting companies are still recovering from their losses in post-Covid-19 lockdown. It becomes evident that players in Africa struggled to adjust to these products, and many reports backed this up—however, the independent research conducted by E-Play Africa Media in some selected African countries. Shows out of the 100 people interviewed, research shows 35% of players neglected these products offered by sports betting companies due to a lack of understanding of not having the required knowledge. 25% claim they don’t have access to monitor or follow some of this event, unlike football, and the remaining 50% percentage claims they are not interested because it is not their favourite sports.

The vacuum here is a 35% population that doesn’t understand how to bet on these sports games. While a clerical example, e-sport is quite popular in Europe and Asia. Thousands of people follow these games as it unfolds, but in Africa, many lack that information to monitor this games; gaming operators could sort this by leveraging on the existing channel. Also, operators need to recalibrate their marketing offering and channel their marketing strategy towards these other products, such as casino games. As mentioned in this article, educating players will aid the industry in growth; even during the football season break, operators will continue to generate considerable income, unlike when there are no football activities where most operators in Africa experience low income.

Furthermore, football betting is the livelihood for many gaming operators, which could become saturated in years to come compared to the numbers of sports betting companies coming to the market yearly. The industry has experienced exponential growth in recent years, thanks to digital infrastructure to access the internet at the comfort of their homes and mobile connectivity, the continent has seen accelerated growth and adoption of tech enabled mobile applications in areas such as fintech solutions, money transfers, e-commerce as all to aid the gaming industry.

Consequently, the digital transformation happening across the sectors and the abundance of demography the region posses has also captured the attention of both local and foreign investors, entrepreneurs and existing international brands to consider the continent as the next big market. Therefore it is vital to use the right tools to educate players, which is crucial for its long-term growth. Meanwhile, it is necessary that the stakeholders, operators in the industry, restrategize as the football betting segment could be saturated in the long-term and stunt the industry growth.

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