More football fans key into betting

By Sunday Ogundiran

More football enthusiasts including the adults, youths, elders, elite and other sports lovers are now involved in betting, taking stake and predicting football matches as well as other sports  to win big as a reward of their passion for sports.

This was confirmed at various betting centres across Oshodi, Isolo and Ejigbo visited by ECHONEWS.

It was gathered that the number of betting centres have equally increased proportionately in the communities due to increase in the population of gamblers.

Chimobi Austine, the bet manager of Sporteybet along Eleganza, Ajao Estate said: “The fact is that we now have different numbers of online and bet outlets with different brand names and bet codes, owned by Nigerians. In all those betting organisations that are now coming up, the difference is in the ownership and rules of the game.

“For instance, 1960bet, 1xbet, 360 bet are foreign games introduced to us and pull crowd during their pioneering stage.

“Now we have about 70 per cent of bet shops, organisations owned by Nigerians running sport bet activities with large stakers of different games who win huge amount on weekly basis compare to pool games and lotto lottery popularly known as Baba Ijebu which were early known to us.”

“But for football leagues and match fixtures, the betting culture and the rule remain the same; only people from 18 years above are allowed to participate.

An attendant at Baba Ijebu Premier Lotto lottery terminal at Ejigbo, Atanda Olayemi, said lotto game is logical and deals with reasoning in the sense that it involves numbers.

“Baba Ijebu is not like other games. We have different games for different sections and times of the day, you can stake or palm with N50 or above and within two hours, you get the result of the game.”