In more mature markets, primarily Europe, operators have mitigated the lack of live sports events by turning to virtual sports and esports. And numbers at hand this diversification of content proved to be quite successful in its own way, with the UK’s Virtual Grand National attracting an audience of almost 5 million viewers, and with bets placed on the race raising over £2.5 million. So why did this trend not pick up in Africa in the same way as in other markets?
Africa was perhaps one of the regions most heavily impacted by the pandemic. Not only is the local population particularly passionate about sports and follow keenly the major European leagues and competitions – among the first to be cancelled or suspended –but the prevalent dominance of the retail arm in the local betting industry due to a lower smartphone and internet penetration when compared to more mature markets, and the relatively high cost associated with mobile data has meant that the local industry has had to share a relatively higher burden due to the pandemic.
Whereas online operators could implement contingency plans to diversify their revenue stream by integrating new content and expanding alternative and complimentary verticals and cross-selling these expanded verticals to their target players, retail licensees have had to face the conundrum of diversifying their business setup and migrate to the digital mediums in a bid to maintain their market share, and retain their fold of players.
Failure to transfer virtuals’ popularity to online On another note, whilst virtual sports have played a crucial role in minimising the negative impact of COVID-19 for so many operators, particularly in Europe, the betting industry in Africa has fallen behind in this aspect, struggling to transfer the success of retail-based virtuals to the online space.
In more mature markets, primarily Europe, operators have mitigated the lack of live sports events by turning to virtual sports and esports. And numbers at
hand this diversification of content proved to be quite successful in its own way, with the UK’s Virtual Grand National attracting an audience of almost five million viewers, and with bets placed on the race raising over £2.5m.
So why did this trend not pick up in Africa in the same way as in other markets? Across the African continent, and especially in Nigeria if one were to take the country as a point of reference, fixed odds betting dominates the industry and is attributed as the primary revenue generator. On the other hand, despite the advancements registered on a year-on- year basis in terms of internet accessibility and smartphone ownership, retail is still king in Africa. What is more surprising is the fact that on a retail level, virtual sports are an absolute favourite amongst punters, with Nigeria being a case in point. In fact operators concur that in what is considered as Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country, the betting ratio in retail shops dips much more in favor for virtual sports rather than live betting. However it was evident that the African market failed to transfer the success of virtual sports from retail to online. It all boils down to betting preferences and internet accessibility.
If one were to look deeply into the market everything points out to a technological infrastructure that is still lagging behind the more advanced markets, and the relatively high cost associated with mobile data packages. Te continent is still deemed to have a low internet coverage characterised by high latency issues that hinder drastically the online streaming of
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