How radio stations are luring elderly parents into the cesspit of gambling

By the time Mundu Muiru decided to vent publicly, he couldn’t hold his devastation anymore. Muiru said he’d bought six sheep at Sh36,000 for his 76-year-old mother earlier this year, to keep her engaged. The granny would sell them and gamble the money through radio stations.

‘‘Not even a single win. She [had] hoped to win [and] multiply the flock,” Muiru narrated while pleading with Interior CS Fred Matiang’i and his ICT colleague Joe Mucheru “to curb this menace.”

Muiru’s tragic story isn’t isolated. But while it mirrors that of many Kenyans, a majority of them often don’t have the confidence to speak out about their gambling parents.

For the brave, their tales are as agonising as they are unbelievable. Many Kenyan parents have sunk into the gambling cesspit, their children too helpless to save them from the ruinous behaviour.

Those who spoke to Sunday Nation — mostly anonymously to protect family relations — painted the picture of a chilling problem that’s fast eating away at the family fortune, driving a wedge between children and their parents.

David Muya says his grandmother would gamble money meant for buying milking jelly, while Ndungu Wanjiku had to destroy his father’s radio to save him from addiction.

“I can’t even send my father money through his phone because he always has an overdraft (Fuliza),” Wanjiku laments.

The elderly bet more

A survey by the Central Bank and KNBS released on Thursday showed that the elderly bet 49 times a week on average, way higher than the 41.4 per cent for all other age groups.

Then there’s Joe *Waithaka, who lives with his grandparents in Mwiki, Kasarani. Waithaka says his grandfather, a loyal listener of two vernacular FM stations, has, for the past six years, whittled down the family’s fortune with unrestrained abandon. The old man, who owns a number of rental houses in Ruai, would rather bet on radio than buy food for the family, the grandson told this paper. 

“He gets hostile when my grandmother asks for money for buying household items.”

Yet the man, now in his mid-70s and retired, has participated in every money game on the two radio stations — between which he oscillates every day — that are notorious for the competitions.

Gambling away family fortune

“I used to place the bets for him. When I complained to him about it, he claimed I was becoming disrespectful to him.”  

When the duo fell out over the wastage, the old man turned to Waithaka’s younger sister. “He insists that tenants pay rent through M-Pesa. He then bets all the money,” adds the 27-year-old.

This reporter was curious to know if, after years of gambling away the family fortune, the man has ever won any cash prizes. Waithaka laughed it off.

He said: “He’s only won Sh2,500, Sh1,000 and Sh500. He’s also won airtime, but not much.”

Besides these prizes that are designed to entice him to keep playing, it’s been a downhill of losses for the man.

“He fights with everyone when the family brings up the subject. No one talks about it anymore,” he says, resigned.

James Gitau had visited home last year when his mother narrated to him about his father’s gambling addiction. After months of hiding, his mother caught him in the act.

‘‘Every time he received a call, my father would step out to answer. He hardly allowed anyone to touch his phone. My mother became curious,” Gitau said.

One day, she took his phone and read through his messages. To her consternation, the old man owed multiple mobile money platforms, had gambled every coin away on radio in the hope of winning hundreds of thousands.

With that, he had fallen into two pits: gambling and a borrowing spree to sustain his appetite to wager. Things became so grim Gitau’s father started selling household items, putting him at cross-purposes with his mother, and threatening their marriage. 

“He had entered a dangerous phase of addiction. My mother had to involve church elders to get him to stop the practice.”

Exit the youthful man battling with midlife crisis who’s ready to bet his life, enter the old, a hardened and almost petulantly optimistic parent, who, in a quest to hit the jackpot, is willing to put everything on the line.

Waithaka’s grandfather and Muiru’s mother are now the face of Kenya’s new gambler. 

It’s a few minutes before the 1 pm bulletin on a Tuesday afternoon on an FM station, and a presenter has just come on air for a gospel show. For the next two hours, the show host will play music, read the bible and tell stories.

Vernacular radio stations

The hold will also reward listeners with cash prizes through a promotion. Daily cash prizes include Sh100,000, Sh300,000, and Sh500,000, while the winner in the grand draw will take home Sh1 million, he says. 

To participate, listeners are required to buy a voucher worth Sh100 through a pay bill number. During his first hour on air, the host reminds listeners six times to participate.  He even plays recordings of past winners, if to persuade cynics.  

“Those with the most vouchers stand a better chance to win,” he says.

Across the city on Kijabe Street, a radio station reminds listeners to participate in lottery. In this game, players select three digits between 0 and 9 randomly in what constitutes a bet.

They then send the selection, accompanied by any amount between Sh10 and Sh1,000 to a pay bill number. Winners can take home up to Sh300,000.

Those who win Sh30,000 or more are rewarded with a shopping voucher worth Sh10,000. The draws occur after 30 minutes for 24 hours. 

When Twitter user Mumbi Mbui recently highlighted the scourge that’s devastating families in Central counties of Nyeri, Kiambu, Murang’a and Kirinyaga, hundreds on Twitter concurred: “Kikuyu vernacular stations have turned into gambling full time. Even pensioners are gambling their money all day.”

While Mumbi singled out vernacular radio stations for this notoriety, others noted that the vice is common in nearly all radio stations in the country. And rightly so. Listening to radio stations in Kenya today is like to sit through a funds drive session. Most frequencies seem to operate from the same template: prize competitions.

If sports betting is risky, gambling on radio is even more precarious. Except this scourge keeps going stronger by the day. It all started about 20 years ago when the media in Kenya became liberalised. With this merged vernacular radio stations that changed the landscape of access to information forever.

Kenya has nearly 200 radio stations, comprising both vernacular and community stations, according to the Communication Authority of Kenya. There’s hardly any ethnic group in Kenya without a radio station in its primary language. 

Promoting gambling

These stations broadcast local events using the language their audience understand best and know all too well it makes them nearly obsessively popular with their listeners. But against the gains is an orgy of destructive practices perpetrated by the stations, some of which have turned families destitute in the name of quick path to economic prosperity.

When vernacular radio stations aren’t promoting gambling, often they are advertising enticing property deals, some of which have turned out to be Ponzi schemes, with subscribers losing millions of life’s worth of savings.

When they started about 12 years ago, prize competitions on radio ran for at least two months, with the eventual winner taking home a hefty sum. In-between, however, those with the highest number of entries would be rewarded generous sums as motivation to keep playing.
Insatiable appetite

During one radio station’s inaugural season in 2008, for instance, the jackpot winner took home a cool Sh2 million after two months of participating. Soon, the appetite to win grew, as did the number of those willing to stake their money.

The games became a daily affair, with multiple winners of between Sh100,000 and Sh300,000. In most games, the entry fee is Sh100, but it can go for as low as Sh10, to accommodate people in all financial brackets.

The quizzes are cleverly crafted, often with bizarrely easy questions, that only the dumbest of people would fail them. “Who betrayed Jesus?” with answers A (Judas) and B (Uhuru) are some of the questions asked.

But then the questions aren’t designed to separate winners and losers. Rather to attract a large number of participants.  A Sh100 participation fee might appear meagre, but cumulatively, it totals hundreds of millions of shillings for the radio stations every year.

Nairobi-based psychologist Ken Munyua says the quest to win money is centred on greed and radio stations are capitalising on the weakness to fleece people. “They make you believe you can actually win by participating to become rich. So, why not try?”

He says gambling, like any other addictive practice, occurs in different phases and once someone gives in to the urge, it’s hard to stop. 

Essentially, betting is legal in Kenya. Anyone can conduct lottery after obtaining a licence from the Betting Control and Licensing Board (BCLB). This department in the Interior ministry draws its mandate from the Betting, Lotteries and Gaming Act. The board licenses gaming companies and regulates how they conduct business to prevent illegalities. 

One such illegality is when entities pass on their permits to third parties, notably radio stations, to run competitions and conduct draws on their behalf. 

In July, BCLB director-general Peter Mbugi put betting firms on notice, after cases of widespread fraud in which Kenyans lost money to faceless firms. Queries were also raised on how winners were determined.

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