GAMING FOR AFRICA
Sierra Leone president hands over Le4-Billion for tourism and hospitality sectors
ICE Africa goes digital for 2020
Clarion Gaming launches ICE Africa Digital 2020 as the in-person event is postponed to 2021. Clarion Gaming announced today that the third instalment of Africa’s leading gambling exhibition and conference ICE Africa will migrate online, running from 27 to 29 October. Supported by a series of reports,
Sierra Leone President Dr Julius Maada Bio has announced Le4.8-billion ($US 480,016) to support the tourism and hospitality sectors for the revenues and jobs they lost since the COVID-19 pandemic in March this year. The President tasked the govermnent, in collaboration with collaboration of the Ministry with the National Tourist Board and the Hotel and Tourism Association to collect and collate data on tourist establishments and workers in that sector - from hotels, beach bars, casinos, and nightclubs. Minister of Tourism, Memunatu Pratt “Based on the data collected, I am therefore pleased to announce that my Government has allocated Le4,883,840,000.00 to the hospitality sector as Social Safety Net Wage Bill support. This is a three-month wage compensation package that will serve a total of 2,363 workers in the hospitality sector. President Bio also noted that his government had
started addressing key sector challenges at a very early stage of the pandemic, with the support of the World Bank, adding that that collaboration resulted in the development of a Strategic Tourism Development Master Plan, a National Tourism Marketing Strategy, an Island Tourism Development Policy, a Tourism and Wildlife Development Policy, an Accommodation Standards and Classification Manual, and an Investor Perception Survey among other initiatives. “International tour operators have shown a more
than keen interest in Sierra Leone tourism. To recount some of our successes over the last one year, we received a group of 300 Danish tourists; the cross-border Budapest-Bamako Rally with over 700 participants terminated here; and a significant number of African-Americans, Gullahs, traced their ancestral roots to Sierra Leone. President Hotel Association , Johnny Shallop said:
“Tourist arrivals surged up by 40% to 107,000 arrivals and tourists spent an estimated US$63 million in the Sierra Leone economy. Bed capacity and occupancy increased with new tourism facilities and the Lumley beach stretch has been developed by locals, creating thousands of jobs for Sierra Leoneans. There is also increased domestic tourism and increased interest in domestic tourist sites from waterfalls to islands and nature reserves and habitats. Recently, the Mambo Waterfalls has become a site of fascination and recreation,” he said.
features and video content in the run-up to the event, the digital conference and networking platform will give delegates the opportunity to learn, engage and discuss the key market developments. For the first time, content will be made available in both English and French, reflecting Africa’s large Francophone population. Attendees will also be able to take
advantage of the MATCH - an efficient networking platform that matches participants, delivers qualified meetings and increases ROI, powered by Artificial Intelligence. Clarion Gaming’s training division, Totally Gaming
Academy, will run a series of bespoke training sessions, allowing registrants to learn from industry experts at a time when Covid-19 is causing significant disruption to the traditionally successful verticals across Africa. The ICE Africa, Women in Gaming (WIG) campaign
will run digitally after its very successful pan-African launch in 2019. Universally, all of the ladies who both featured in the campaign as well as attended the first WIG Breakfast at ICE Africa 2019, highly recommended the campaign. The WIG platform will continue to highlight the diverse and phenomenal contribution made by women throughout the African gaming sector. Further details of the program, and additional
features, will be announced in due course. ICE Africa becomes the third show in Clarion
Gaming’s ICE portfolio to move online in response to
Covid-19, following the successful debuts of ICE North America Digital and ICE Asia Digital. Each event has been tailored to local
stakeholders’ needs, according to Group Event Director Greg Saint: The key thing for us as organisers is
that we continue to help our audience in addressing their needs – needs that have changed considerably since the last in-person edition of ICE Africa,” Saint explained. “We treat each event as its own – so,
while both of our recent digital events performed very well in meeting the needs of our participants, we don’t take that for granted. We’ve spoken with our stakeholders and have been very pleased with the demand for running ICE Africa 2020 to help fulfil their requirements in a very challenging period – this time helping them to meet their objectives as before, but online.”
Clarion Events’ commercial director: Africa, Richard Stubbs, added: “Africa has seen its own set of challenges across the continent due to the Covid-19 global pandemic, significantly impacting how our customers can do their jobs and achieve their goals. We’re committed to doing anything we can to help our audience during this tough time – and, as physical venues are currently not an option for staging events in South Africa, we are pleased to be able to take the initiative and deliver a digital edition of ICE Africa, which will continue the learning that the gaming industry needs now more than ever.” ICE Africa Digital will take place online from
Tuesday, 27 to Thursday, 29 October, 2020. To find out more, and to register, go to
www.iceafrica.za.com.
The ICE Africa in-person event will return in 2021 from Tuesday, 21 September to Wednesday, 22 September at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Nigeria: Lagos govt proposing US$52,000 licence fee for lottery operators
An executive bill currently under consideration in the Lagos House of Assembly is proposing a N200 million (US$52,000) licence fee for lottery operators. The fee covers a five year period. Rotimi Olowo, the House committee chairman on finance, told a local news outlet that the bill has just passed second reading and is now being deliberated by a committee. Olowo said although the fee is to ensure that fraudsters do not get into the lottery business, there are complaints from the operators. “They now complain that N200 million for a five-year licence is rather on the high side,” said Mr
Olowo, who represents Somolu constituency. “But they don’t know the other implications about that. Number one is that we don’t just want anybody to come in because it borders on even the integrity of the operators. So at the end of the day, the customers will not be swindled.” According to information on the Lagos State
Lotteries Board website, one of the requirements for online sports betting, casino, public online lottery, and gaming machine is that the applicant must have a minimum share capital of N20 million for each of the categories.
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