Experts said that Nigeria can benefit from Africa’s over 1 billion US dollars lottery and gaming industry.
This, they noted, can be actualized by evolving more proactive measures by government and stakeholders to liberalize and also regulate lottery and gaming activities in the country.
Director General, Cross Rivers State Lottery Gaming Agency Micheal Eja, disclosed this when he unveiled a new initiative being championed by one of the gaming firms in Abuja.
Eja disclosed that with the growing population of Nigeria, Lottery and gaming could become a goldmine that will help in building a viable economy outside the oil sector.
According to him, the lottery and gaming industry is worth about 1b billion dollars in Africa. He disclosed that Lagos state had already started benefiting from the industry, generating about $243,000 million dollars in revenues last year.
He called on governments at various levels to make concerted efforts to upgrade their platforms and work very hard to ensure that all lottery operators are paying the required tax.
Eja added that when appropriate taxes are collected from lottery operators, revenue generation will be shored up for the government.
Also speaking, Director of Operations, Woskybet, Nurudeen Idrees, said that the government can leverage the lottery and gaming industry to create more employment for the teeming youths of Nigeria.
Idrees disclosed that his company had commenced the operation of some platforms that would give enormous benefits both to customers and every other party.