More women patronise gambling

Weekend Today’s investigation has revealed that more and more Ghanaian women are resorting to gambling and various gaming centres with the hope of making some quick money.

Some residents of Awoshie, Kwashieman, Sowutuom Santa Maria and Kwashiebu, all suburbs of Accra, have expressed concerns over how women were becoming addicted to betting and gambling.

The raffle game machines introduced by some Chinese in the country in recent times are said to have contributed to the low school attendance among children.

But Weekend Today’s findings revealed that women have equally developed a serious penchant for gambling.

They compete day and night with their men counterparts at various game centres.

“I just felt like gambling and have been winning every evening. I have cultivated a strong habit of coming to this spot after business everyday to play with the hope that some manna may fall from heaven,” a plantain seller at Awoshie Market, Madam Akua Broni, told Weekend Today.

42-year-old kenkey seller at Kwashieman, Juliet Agyapong, revealed to Weekend Today that she was introduced to the gambling business by a friend a year ago and since then, she has never stopped.

She explained that even though there have been many losses than wins she would continue until she hits the jackpot one day.

According to 17-year-old school dropout, Aisha Fuseini, from Kwashiebu in Accra, she got enticed into gambling by her friends, “And since then, I have been gambling without my parent’s knowledge.

To Aisha, if her parents, who are ardent Muslims, get to know that she gambles they would be disappointed in her and may even sack her from the house.

“But I have become addicted to it. It’s my prayer that I stop one day,” she said.

“A friend of mine told me about the game and I joined her in playing. So I started, and since then I have been playing. I think it’s interesting… I love it,” a resident of Santa Maria, a suburb of Accra, Miss Nora Norty, told Weekend Today.

According to her, she has benefited so much from the game. With few coins, she could earn some cedis to add to the house keeping money her boy gives her every day.

“I am doing this with the aim of acquiring one of the machines. I want to operate my own machine. In fact, the business is good, especially when you play it late in the evening.”

In Ghana’s densely populated slum, Nima, the situation is calamitous because many unemployed women spend their money on gambling with the hope of “making big cash.”