Mobile Money Key to the Future of Africa’s iGaming Sphere

After more than a decade since its emergence, mobile money has evolved as the standard financial service of choice for many underserved groups in developing African countries. In other words, its appeal and quick adoption in African countries has primarily been due to its democratization of financial service.

But the rapid adoption and widespread use in many underserved groups aren’t due to its convenience as it is in many developed markets. Still, on its necessity, since its bridges gaps for unbanked people that the existing banking sector cannot due to its lackluster service, growing African population become an issue for the traditional banking sector to meet the demand of the people that were underserved, lack access to the services, poor user experience contributes to the frustration of consumers experience right across customer spectrum.

As a result, emerging markets have become the epicenter of mobile money activity, with sub-Saharan Africa experiencing the most growth. Transaction volume and value in the region have seen double-digit growth during the last decade, and mobile money accounts expected to reach 500 million at the end of 2020. This runaway success has been evident in all region sectors, and the African iGaming sphere is no exception.

In contrast, several bookmakers have been quick to adopt mobile money platforms couple with digital payment service to their platforms to solve the pain point of customers having not to go through stress; with just their mobile device, customers can load money directly into a mobile wallet, which they can use more like an online bank account depositing, withdrawing, funds, transferring money and paying bills among others the runaway success of the mobile money service was initially in Kenya thanks to the Safaricom telecom company penetration M-Pesa that have launched in six other countries in Africa including Tanzania, Ghana, DR Congo.

As mentioned earlier, mobile money providers’ proliferation and the solutions that have spread across over 30 African countries expected to reach 500 million accounts have helped capture those in developing markets to access financial service and enable businesses, such as bookmakers and customers, to connect having iGaming betting experience, and provide an entry point to mobile gambling. The iGaming betting and gambling market experienced enormous growth in the continent was evident thanks to mobile money penetration. The iGaming sphere’s growth is unprecedented, which online, represent 23% of total betting GGR for Africa of $1.15bn, and within that mobile represent just over half of total gambling GGR, the figures are 12% for online with 40% of that via mobile.

In contrast, the projected prediction, according to iGaming intelligence specialist H2 Gambling Capital, the African online gambling market’s total value reached an estimated US996 million in 2019. Showing continuous growth since the company started following its value in 2012 projected that the African iGaming business’s value would likely more than double in the next five years, reaching an estimated level of more than $2 billion. Even though Africa will represent a mere 1% of global GGR in 2020, mobile money providers’ bottom approach has proven to be the most successful in many countries is undoubtedly the catalyst in markets with a largely unbanked punters base in Africa iGaming sphere.

Despite the prevalence of mobile money solutions in Africa, which has been pivotal to the iGaming sphere growth in recent years, the African iGaming sphere further experiences exponential growth in the next couple of years. Africa needs to adopt a pan-African mobile money reach.

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