Port Harcourt

Parts of the Port Harcourt suburb of Oyigbo came alive with jubilation yesterday as a 33 year old mechanic, Ugochukwu Osondu, instantly became a millionaire after winning 24million from Hamabet, an sports betting company. He said he really didn’t believe he had won until he got a text message from his bank, a credit alert, and saw a balance amount he had never dreamt. Ugochukwu, a regular bettor, who plays once a month, said he played at three betting shops with N1,800 that morning, and that he also N20,000 on the same day, making his total win for the week N24,020,000.

The Ohafia, Imo state born automobile technician said he was too excited to talk but was grateful to his best friend who encouraged to his spread his N1,800 across three Betting vendors. He said ‘’Hamabet is new, I have never played with them, but they are in Lagos. Something just said I should listen to my bestfriend and spread my last bet with them, and I played the ticket twice.’’ He said when he won, the owner of the betting shop, who they called ‘’agent’’ ‘’could not believe, as it was the biggest win ever in his shop. When asked how he intends to spend the money, Ugochukwu said, ‘I will invest in my business and move to my own shop.’

Sports betting is becoming a major activity for young Nigerians between the age of 18 and 45, and many big betting companies are emerging in every part of the country. Early this year, in March, a 17 year old boy from Oturkpo, in Benue state, won the sum of N43 million from another popular betting company in Nigeria.

We could not reach the Hamabet director of communications, but Sola Benson, a businessman who has owned a betting shop for close to 11 years in Port Harcourt said that though the company is new, its payout is about the fastest in the industry, and the easiest to play to online.
He said Hamabet is seeing a surge in Port Harcourt and Lagos because most of its customers are online. ‘’It is a great strategy the company deployed, by empowering her agents with the right technology to promote online betting,’’

Sports booking analysts say that Nigerians are one of the highest bettor countries in Africa, and is only behind Kenya and South Africa.

Rosemary Chinda
Garden City Telegraph