SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
In a move which is hoped will combat ‘unscrupulous companies’ in the betting and lottery industries, the Nigerian National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) has secured a ‘long overdue’ agreement with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
Under a new alliance, the duo will work together carrying out a vetting process for licence applications of potential Nigerian lottery and betting operators.
Lanre Gbajabiamila, Director-General of the NLRC, commented: “This collaboration has been long overdue in terms of paying this visit. As you know, our mandate is to regulate lottery, sports betting and gaming activities in Nigeria.
“Our Commission can only do so much on its own because of the way the industry has grown and continues to grow. A partnership case in point is the partnership with the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure lottery operators complying with our payments in good faith.
“The reason we are here is to also ensure our collaboration is modified in the area of new discoveries in the lottery sector.”
The Registrar General and CEO of the CAC, Abubakar Garba, added that the CACA had previously encountered issues relating to the registration of lottery licensees in the past, and expressed hope that the new alliance would mitigate any further issues in the future.
“We have had issues in the past with the registration of lottery companies,” Garba said. “This made us revisit the earlier requirement that approval in principle must be obtained from the NLRC before such registration.
“But we have been mindful of the need to properly regulate these companies. Generally, as an agency, we have dispensed mostly with the approval in principle because of delay in the process.
“Instead of asking for approval in principle, we will create a database for the NLRC so that from the comfort of your office, you would be able to verify whether a company is registered with us as a lottery company.”
