16th April, 2012
The Lagos Lottery Board has declared war on illegal online lottery operators who have not obtained the required license from the board across the state.
The board vowed to henceforth descend heavily on violators, saying government has mapped out strategies to fish out persons engaged in the act.
Speaking in Lagos, southwest Nigeria, at a stakeholders forum for sports bet operators, agents and members of the public, chairman of the board, Mr. Lanre Gbajabiamila urged such operators to approach the LotteryBoard and legalize their operations.
According to him, the board has a strong enforcement and monitoring unit with support from the Governor’s Office Task Force to clamp down on illegal operators, saying their activities constituted a threat to operators who were duly registered and licensed to operate in the state.
Gbajabiamila stated that the board would begin a serious clampdown on illegal sports bet operators in the state to ensure that unsuspecting citizens are not defrauded by dubious operators.
“The sports bet operators will have to help us here in letting us know where these illegal operators are; so, it’s a collaboration between the government and the operators,” he said.
On the complaints by most of the operators on the need to review the N5 million license fee per annum to enable operators survive in the business, the lottery boss said the board would meet to consider their request.
“The possibility is there, but you have to understand that we had initially pegged it at N10million and then we brought it down to N5 million and now that we’ve had a forum and we hear that they want a review, we will look at it, but at the same time, some operators are of the opinion that the N5 million is not high, so we have to weigh all these things and then come back and decide whether to bring the license fee down”.
He added that the Board might also consider reducing the tax implications required for operators running lottery businesses.