The Winners Golden Bet (WGB) weekend, revealed that Nigerians stake nothing less than N15 million on its platform on daily basis as part of effort to alleviate poverty in the country.
Also, the sport gaming company added that in the last three years over 2000 entrepreneurs been empowered with provision of necessary tools such as computer set, printing machine, among others, to set up shops as the company’s business agent with a view to expanding its reach in 21 states of the federation.
Speaking at a media briefing heralding the company’s third anniversary in Lagos, Executive Director, WGB,Mr. Suleiman Olabanji, said that the company would seize the Valentine Season as opportunity to reward and award its business agents across the country and unveil past major winners as evidence of business promoting entrepreneurship and empowering lives, along side unveiling of its Brand Ambassador: Jason, an artist in the music industry.
He said: “we have made people millionaires through what they stake and we have paid them, we are unveiling them for people to see that it is true. The game is real, is not just a game but a business and people are benefiting. We have given out so much money, some individuals have won N6million, N3million, N8million and more.
Sometimes, in a day we pay more than N200million to N400million because it spread across, it is not just one person and the highest an individual has staked in the game is N13million. There is no day we don’t sign money, an average winning that we sign in a day is close to N15million.
“We are bringing in new games because we are looking at games that would attract business to our agents. We encourage people by giving them Computer set and printer as part of entrepreneurship,” he said.
Olabanji described the business as a redistribution of wealth, explaining that the company is left with a small amount of money it holds on to which is less than five percent from which it pays salaries, put structures in place. “we do a whole lot of financial management to sustain the business. Somebody must win everyday so we redistribute wealth, it is a poverty alleviation programme. We do overdraft to pay strategic winnings.”
Highlighting the level of women participation in the game, he disclosed that most people in the online transaction are women who seat down in their house and engage themselves in playing sport betting and predicting games, especially female bankers.
In particular, he said that the risks involved; delay in achieving cashless economy, poor power supply; are major challenges to the business.
“The major challenge in this business is power, this business provide employment to a lot of people but what kill the business is unstable power supply, people spend so much money buying fuel and these are people who what they make daily cannot be more than N3000 or N5000. If it is possible for people to make N3000 without spending money on fuel, it is possible for them to stay in the business, so power is a major problem in the business.
“Another problem is government’s over taxation, the tax burden for this kind of business is excessive, we pay both state and federal, we pay all kinds of government taxes, so there is a sort of over taxation on the industry, by the government,” he said.
Source: Vanguard
