Following the legalization of gambling in Nigeria, many sports betting sites have sprouted significantly in recent years – both local and international operators. Generally, sports betting has also become one of the best fun activities that young people engage in from weekdays to weekends. However, the astronomical rise in gambling in Nigeria has also attracted a string of well-calculated phony schemes.
As you might have guessed, the underlying goal of such schemes is to fleece unsuspecting bettors of their money. To a reasonable degree, the sports betting landscape in Nigeria is not fully regulated, giving unscrupulous elements some leverage. Currently, people parade themselves as seasoned ‘handicappers’ or leading ‘bookmakers’, predicting the outcomes of sports events and accepting wagers on games, respectively.
Let’s explore these scams in the Nigerian sports betting scene and how to gamble safely and conveniently.
Most popular Nigerian sports betting schemes
Prediction Software for wins
Bettors are continually looking for ways to maximize winnings with every prediction. In turn, those who pretend to know the market are also constantly making claims of having algorithms and prediction systems that help them make accurate predictions most times. They mostly deploy such terms as “sports prediction software” to depict the computer program they sell out.
Such software, as they claim, will correctly predict the result of sports events, usually football, basketball, baseball, cricket, and horse racing. Typically, vulnerable bettors buy the software and are even more drawn to it after luck shines on them and they win just once. Then they keep going back for more and downloading all sorts of software.
False bookmaker sites
Although not peculiar to only Nigeria, it has its fair share of fake sports betting sites with attractive features. The scam sites provide a compelling platform that could easily convince players on the surface level with bonuses that are too good to be true. Besides bonuses, from deposits to all other activities on the site, they all usually seem legit until it’s time to withdraw your winnings.
The site will then cook up several stories to explain their default in processing withdrawal requests. The excuses continue until they have probably scooped billions from people and then shut down operations. Worse still, the scammers can abuse your private data or even use it to perpetrate fraud.
To avert these fake sites, we advise visiting legitimate review sites like Betting Companies Africa, where you can read up some useful information about several bookmakers.
Bookmaker scams
Bookmaker scams are similar to prediction software scams but differ in approach. Typically, bookmaker scams present bogus claims of what you stand to win if you pay huge amounts or buy into software that opens up the bookmaker’s system.
Through the system, you can then make correct forecasts of events, with the first few wins cementing most bettors’ trust in the bookmaker. After the bettors increase their bets, the losses start pouring in until the players end up losing more than they ever won.
Expert betting groups
On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, betting scammers offer interested bettors a slot in their betting groups. The usual modus operandi is for you to join the group, where a highly experienced bettor will make stakes in your stead.
So, the bettors will deposit money for their bets on the condition that they would earn a huge chunk of the winnings. More often than not, the bets never return the expected wins or anything close to it.
How to avoid getting scammed
The first thing to note is, if any supposed expert had a way of making the most profits from betting, they wouldn’t want to involve people. But because they have not even figured how to win their every bet, they want to scam you.
Additionally, if a sports betting site or supposed expert offers features that are too good to be true, flee because such offers are most definitely too good to be real. Experts seek ways to advance their relevance and impact bettors, not ways of making unconscionable gains.
Furthermore, you can never go wrong with responsible gambling, which includes setting your limits and sticking to them. That way, you won’t get greedy, which makes it difficult for anyone to scam you.
Avoid sharing confidential or sensitive data on social media, as a licensed bookmaker will not demand your information across social media.
Sources
- mondaq.com
- responsiblegambling.org
