Sports betting craze

By Justin Emedot, :: 29-09-2011

Robert Okware (not real name), is a huge football lover of the English Premier League, and Arsenal to be precise. He loves following his team’s action every weekend on Super Sport.
But watching football of recent has made it even more enjoyable with the popularisation of sports betting companies in Uganda. On good days he says, he goes back to his hostel with extra money if the odds are on his side and his team wins the game.
Watching football today is increasingly becoming more than just a passive leisure activity. It is an income-generating activity for both individuals and companies.
Sports betting or gaming is a form of gambling that involves making a bet with money, usually on a sports event with an uncertain outcome with the aim of winning money in addition. Usually the results of the person betting are expected within a short time.
Betting on sports is a big service industry in many countries, in the recent years it has picked up speed in Uganda. Before that, the common venues were the casinos and lotteries hugely viewed as for the rich.
Gideon Juuko Ssuna, the centre manager Gaming International, Mukono branch, says sports’ betting in the town centre is something becoming increasingly popular among the youth in the community.
“They are learning the game, and they have realised that it’s something that is profitable if you know how to do the calculations. We do have a group of people who bet up to a tune of half a million shillings, and hope to double or even triple that in profits depending on the odds,” says Juuko.
The majority of people bet on football and at times on tennis and virtual games.Juuko says they are taxed 15% for every transaction. The majority of their clients are students, boda boda (commercial motorcyclists) as well as businessmen.
Though today it is a major international activity, gambling has always been disapproved in some societies, with some countries banning it totally, especially Muslim countries under the Sharia law. But it is a practice discouraged by the Christian communities too.
According to Rev. Milton Tweheyo, the Uganda Christian University director of Student Affairs, gambling is unacceptable.
“It’s not Christian; our life on earth is not a gamble. God has put us on earth for a purpose, and we must use hands and all our faculties to survive,” Rev Tweheyo says.
He explains that it’s a habit that is addictive, and with time can make you look for short-cuts in life.
“You can start gambling with money today, and then tomorrow you may start gambling with academic papers. You don’t think you are going to study because you are going to bet your way through life,” he says.
Juuko too agrees on that and says he wouldn’t want people to entirely depend on betting for a livelihood, because it is just gambling. Some days you win and the other days you lose. He at times advises to his customers, especially the young ones, about how to spend the profits they get.
“We recently had a young man who won Shs2.5m, and I advised him to buy a piece of land instead of throwing it all back into gambling, because you can lose it all at once just like you acquired it,” says Juuko.
But with sports betting becoming something common among the urban youth, it’s only their conscience that will guide them on where to draw the line between gambling for leisure, and things that matter in life.
As for Okware, he would get in problems at the university, since gambling is against the university code of conduct.
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