Sportpesa: A country of gamblers
By the end of 2018, about 6 million Kenyans were betting on the Sportpesa platform every day and transacting an average of Sh600 million a day.
The company enjoyed explosive growth from its relatively humble beginnings of over 1 billion in 2014, when the firm was set up, to Sh150 billion turnover in 2018, just before the government pulled the plug on Sportpesa over a tax dispute and security concerns about some of its owners.
Sportpesa was Kenya’s most successful betting company. Kenya’s betting craze was arguably ignited by the firm.
At the height of its success, the company's fortunes seemed unreal as it took the country by storm.
The amount of money that was being spent by Kenyans on betting is simply astounding, and the number of people involved staggering. Even now, the effects of betting on Kenya’s population remains unquantified.
But just what happened in Sportpesa's boardrooms? Is the company really guilty of the crimes it was accused of? And what did the company do to warrant the aggressive clampdown from the government?
In this podcast, a country of gamblers, we explore the impact Sportpesa had on the country and what it did to a nation.
