Niyi Adekunle is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Lotgrand, also known as Grandlotto, a popular national lottery operator in Nigeria. In this exclusive interview, he speaks about how technology has redefined lottery as a business and could create endless opportunities for employment and economic growth in the country. Excerpts.
What is the benefit of lottery in any country?
Lottery redistributes wealth and creates hope and excitement and what most serious governments around the world do for their citizens to make the country continue to roll in positive direction is to give them hope and create excitement. America can spend any amount of money to make sports active. A lot of times, people hear about the government giving tokens as an entitlement to citizens who are out of work for a particular time. It is not that the amount is going to turn them to millionaires but it will give them hope for tomorrow and when you have hope, it will deter you from committing crime or fraud. A lot of Nigerians relocate to the United Kingdom or United States of America, it is not that they are richer there, but they have hope and so they continue to love that country. Lottery is a very major source of hope for a lot of people. Lottery creates employment for people every day.
Compare to other climes, what are the potentials of lottery business in Nigeria and what value can lottery bring to the economy?
It is very unfortunate that the kind of system we are running in this part of the world is crude oil based. Nigerian government and technocrats only make future projections based on oil revenue and the amount of crude oil in the reserves, meanwhile there are so many other things that could be considered as goldmines in the country but we have refused to see potential and develop it. Lottery can generate as much money as the total budget for the Nigerian economy this year.
The 2017 budget is N7.2 trillion and lottery can generate so much more than that in one year if it is positioned well and there are right policies to actually put it forward. When you talk about monetary terms, we should look at what lottery has done for countries that are actually working and boosting lottery in their space.
The London 2012 Olympic Games cost 8 billion pounds which was generated from the taxes of lottery. So if you get 8 billion pounds from lottery taxes, imagine what Nigeria would be able to do with lottery proceeds if the space is well harnessed. Lottery in Nevada, the state in America generated $31.2 billion in June 2017. Imagine what such a huge amount of money can do for the Nigerian economy. We have the human resources to make a very robust lottery system in Nigeria. When you have so many people coming into that space, it is simple to make money. However, in Nigeria, we have a lot of religious and cultural biases that has made lottery somehow blacklisted.
What is Lotgrand doing to build the trust of Nigerians in the failed lottery systems?
Many countries around the world have government owned lottery companies and Nigeria once tried with the Lagos State lottery which was in partnership with Orion technology at the time, but the people that ran the company at that time had very little idea of what lottery is supposed to be. It actually took a lot of lottery professionals and investors to understand the type of lottery that people will appreciate in this clime.
The Ghanaians started lottery in Nigeria and in 1983. There was the ‘Ghana must go’ saga when the Nigerian government asked the Ghanaians to leave but the few that stayed back in Nigeria looked for ways to survive and they started lotto and it became predominant within the Ghanaian community in Nigeria till the late 1990s when Nigerians got involved. In the early 2000s automation was brought into lotto and gradually other types of lottery systems are coming up. Sports betting are now the in thing amongst the millennial because technology has made it so much easier to participate in it.
How can local entrepreneurs exploit the developing lottery business to employ and empower the youth?
There are more than a thousand and one ways for entrepreneurs to exploit the business because it is a kind of industry that no matter how much you have; there is always space for you. For someone who has N200, 000 to N500, 000 and is interested should approach a lottery firm and something would be structured out for the person, like in the case of 5:90 lotto where Lotgrand is major in, we can give out Point of Sales (PoS) terminals and a region of the country where the person can work from. There are very many parts to lottery. In lotto there is 6 of 49, 5 of 40 and 5of 90 which simply means there are 90 balls in the draw machine and is rolled either mechanically or electronically, the first five balls that come out of the machine are considered winning numbers, although the invention has taken it further to also consider the last five numbers as winning numbers but the first five are still the most popular ways of determine winning numbers and that is why it is called 5 of 90.
What can Nigeria do to enhance the lottery industry, considering that cultural and religious biases may hinder the growth of lottery which is sometimes considered as gambling?
Lottery is gaming and not necessarily gambling. In our culture, we see gambling as a bad thing, but one thing that people must understand is that anything that is done to the extreme is bad. As much as we must eat to stay alive, eating too much to the point of obesity is bad, so also, extreme gaming which can turn to gambling is bad. A man that played lotto with N100 with the hope of gaining N24, 000 with a winning ticket, will not be tempted to pick pocket or commit suicide because he has hope that he might win something soon. That expectation will rub off on the general society and help everybody to be more responsible. The lottery business has come to stay in Nigeria, although the growth is not as rapid as should be because of the biases. The government needs to start using lottery proceeds well. Taxes from lottery should be used to build schools, stadiums, health care facilities etc and make it public knowledge that the facilities where built using lottery taxes, so that people can respect and appreciate lottery businesses.
What is the process of getting a lottery license in Nigeria?
If you must get a license in Lagos State, you have to pay N200million to the government, while a license in Ogun State and Abuja costs N100million. If Lagos State is building anything at all with the N200 million paid for a lottery license, that thing should be an edifice. There is no way that people will see that their local health center was built with lottery money and tell people not to partake in lottery. What we have noticed is that most of the funds coming from lottery to government are not being judiciously expended. What is takes to set up a lottery business in Nigeria today is a lot different from what it used to be in the past when you just needed the technical knowhow. Right now, you must have a license in any State you wish to practice and you cannot just operate manually anymore, you must operate on automated platforms; real-time, online and PoS.
Would you say that technology has influenced the lottery business in Nigeria?
Technology has really helped the lottery industry. The online payment systems, USSD codes and payment gateways have helped. Gone are the days when a lottery business in Lagos could not do business with people in the North because it will take up to three days are more to get a cycle of transaction done. So the rigorous process has been eliminated because of technologically advanced payment systems.
Is there a science behind how lotto is played?
There is a school of thought that you must understand some mathematical basis to actually play and win. Some people do forecasting while some people believe that it is just luck. However, there is no way that you can rubbish any of the thought line because, time in time out, you see them winning.
Would you say that lottery in Nigeria is targeted towards the youth?
Lottery is essentially for everybody, but when you check the population around the world, the youth have the largest numbers so generally, you must sell for the youth because they are the core of the population.
How can lottery operators prevent fraud in the system especially with automated payments?
There are anti-money laundering trainings that we attend even outside the country, so we are taught how to spot anybody that is trying to launder money through your platform and fraudsters are curbed by making sure that customers’ identities are always protected. At Lotgrand, we make sure that our passwords are frequently changed and our software is updated. The rate of online fraud is actually very minimal in lottery businesses because of the security levels on our platforms.
In terms of lottery space comparison with other countries where would you place Nigeria’s lottery industry?
It is so unfortunate that all the countries on par with Nigeria in terms of civilisation and population numbers, Nigeria’s lotto system is nowhere near as advanced as any of those countries. We are one of the worst religious bias countries in the world and that has made us push a lot of things under the word of morals.
