By Cindy Kirui.
Much of the cacophony of voices condemning Kenya’s betting industry is rooted in anecdote, moral posturing, and outright misinformation. While concerns over gambling addiction and financial recklessness may have shades of validity, the discourse has devolved into a festival of hyperbole, where myths masquerade as truths and correlation is confused with causation. Any attack on betting in Kenya needs to invoke empirical evidence, context, and comparative analysis. Anything else is dishonest. It is time to demand that critics arm themselves with facts, not fabrications.
Headlines scream that betting is “destroying a generation” and “corrupting Kenyan values.” Yet these claims crumble under careful scrutiny. A 2023 report by the National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse revealed that only 2.3% of Kenyans exhibit problematic gambling behaviour. This figure dwarfs alcohol abuse (11.6%) and tobacco addiction (8.2%). Besides, the Central Bank of Kenya’s 2022 financial stability report noted that personal loans, not betting losses, account for 62% of household debt defaults.
This is not to dismiss the real pain of gambling addiction but to put it in context. Betting is a symptom of broader systemic failures, some of them being, unemployment, poverty, and financial illiteracy. It is not the root cause. To ignore these factors is the same as blaming matches for arson.
Clueless critics often frame betting as a uniquely Kenyan vice, ignoring global parallel. In the UK, where gambling is a deeply entrenched culture, 24% of adults gamble weekly, yet the economy thrives. Closer home, South Africa’s regulated betting industry contributes over ZAR 30 billion annually to the GDP. Why, then, is Kenya’s experience portrayed as an existential crisis?
The double standard extends to other industries. Alcohol companies sponsor sports and music events, targeting youth as aggressively—if not more—as betting firms. Tobacco, a leading cause of preventable deaths, remains legal. Yet betting alone is singled out for moral condemnation, not because it is inherently worse, but because it is an easy target for politicians and pundits seeking to posture as society’s saviours.Lost in the hysteria is the betting sector’s tangible economic contribution. According to the Betting Control and Licensing Board, the industry employs over 30,000 Kenyans directly and supports 200,000 indirect jobs, from IT developers to small-scale retailers selling airtime. In 2022, betting firms paid Ksh 22 billion in taxes, funds that built classrooms and stocked hospitals with essentials.
Critics of betting routinely peddle falsehoods to stoke panic. First, no credible study links betting to crime rates. Nairobi’s 2023 crime statistics show theft and assault are driven by unemployment (34% youth joblessness), not gambling. Secondly, a 2023 GeoPoll survey found that 76% of Kenyan youth bet “occasionally,” primarily during major sports events. Only 8% bet daily. Thirdly, Kenya’s GDP grew by 5.6% in 2023, a year of record betting activity.
These myths persist because they are emotionally resonant but certainly not factually sound.
Betting losses are often framed as moral failings rather than a reflection of Kenya’s financial education gap. A 2021 Financial Sector Deepening study found that 68% of Kenyan adults cannot explain interest rates, while 54% lack emergency savings. In such an environment, even non-gamblers make ruinous decisions, taking high-interest loans, falling for pyramid schemes, or squandering funds on get-rich-quick scams.
Betting platforms are not standalone villains. A person taught to budget, save, and calculate risk is far less likely to gamble irresponsibly. Yet the Betting Control and Licensing Board whose work is clearly cut out seems to also whine when triggers against grumbling are pulled by ignoramuses.
Reasonable regulation is necessary, but it must be guided by data, not dogma. For instance, Uganda has daily betting deposits. The Betting Control and Licensing Board can demand that betting apps embed warnings announcing that normally, only 12% of bets win. Moreover, some proceeds from betting should be allocated to fund addiction centres as the case is in Sweden.
Lest we forget, when Tanzania banned sports betting in 2019, illegal gambling surged by 300%, according to a 2021 UN report.
Betting is not Kenya’s biggest problem. Misinformation is. Religious leaders demonise it to amplify their moral authority while media outlets sensationalise it to pull masses to their platforms. Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands who the betting industry feeds risk to be sacrificed at the altar of hypocrisy.
Kenya deserves a debate on betting grounded in reality, not myth.
Cindy is a budding music scholar, human rights activist and a commentator on social affairs.
