Getting it right - Ghana must learn from South Africa's vast sports betting experience

The recent phenomenon of sports fans, particularly football fans, winning bets with some sports betting companies yet their winnings are not promptly paid is gaining notoriety in Ghana.

The issue was thrust into the public sphere on Friday when a young taxi driver went public to complain that his winning bet from matches in the English Premier League last week was not promptly paid which resulted in him going to the media to protest.

Sports betting in Ghana has jumped leaps and bounds since the creation of the first company in the country in 2010 with daily sports gambling by companies as some ten companies have been licensed to operate.

These companies in Ghana target younger generations by advertising on the internet and social media, creating very low signing-in to hook young people into making daily bets to satisfy the low-risk, high-reward part of our lives.

It is also attractive to the young people because betting on football is much more accepted and reachable for younger people than slot machines and card games.

The protest by the taxi driver would not have been gone public if the Gaming Commission, the body mandated by government to regulate to activities of the sports betting companies, had a way of dealing with complaints by punters who win genuinely and are promptly denied their payments or refused to be paid for unexplained reasons.

This shows that there are some laxes in the system which must be plucked to prevent the systems from going to the dogs. It is clear that the Gaming Commission in Ghana is amateur in its approach and operations.

The lack of in-depth knowledge of the sports betting industry, particularly online sports betting, is the key reason why lawmakers in Ghana have found it very tough to crackdown on the offending companies in the industry.

Perhaps the controlling body must now observe how other countries particularly in Africa operate the industry to ensure that there are enough safeguards to protect the ordinary football fan in Ghana betting on matches.

The best example of this comes from South Africa where the industry is developed with the right safeguards to protect everyone involved from the betting operators to the punters and society at large.

The industry in South Africa is so developed that casinos for ZA gambling have gone online to attract more people and attract women, the young and even the older generation who previously preferred to walk into shops to take a punt.

There is even the South African casino advisor which aggregates all the legal companies ensuring that those licensed and most effective are featured on that platform.

Ghana must develop to reach that standard to ensure that we don’t even get to the point where illegal betting syndicates storm the country to offer better odds for a sporting event, making the payout in case of a winning bet, more attractive.

There is no precise description of illegal betting as it may vary from country to country depending on each country's laws but South Africa’s gaming industry is what Ghana can learn from to protect unsuspecting punters.

The fear is that if not controlled, unlawful betting and subsequent match-fixing may do irreparable damage to various sports.

The consequence of choosing a bad sports betting company can be disastrous as far as the fan’s sports betting experience is concerned so getting the industry to be clean will surely make the experience enjoyable and hopefully profitable.