One of the most repeated numbers about betting in Nigeria is that 60 million people bet every day. In October 2025, the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission told a stockbrokers’ conference that more than 60 million Nigerians engage in gambling daily. No source was given. The same figure appears in a News Agency of Nigeria report from 1 August 2014, credited to a single sports betting analyst. So where does it come from, and does it hold up? Gist9ja’s Nigeria Betting Reality Check traced eight popular betting figures back to where they started. Here is what it found.
A twelve-year-old claim that was never measured
The 2014 report spoke of 60 million bettors aged 18 to 40. According to UN population data, Nigeria had about 61 million people in that age group at the time. The claim therefore implied that almost everyone aged 18 to 40, women included, was betting every day.
The report’s own money figures point elsewhere. It put daily betting spend at N1.8 billion, at N3,000 per bettor. That adds up to 600,000 bettors, not 60 million.
Today the number looks no safer. Nigeria has roughly 125 million adults, so 60 million daily bettors would mean nearly half of all adults betting every single day.
Two officials, 177 times apart
In 2023, the Executive Secretary of the National Lottery Trust Fund said 65 million Nigerians bet and spend $15 a day. That is $975 million a day, or $356 billion a year. Two years later, the SEC put daily spending at $5.5 million. The two statements are 177 times apart. Spread over 60 million daily bettors, $5.5 million is about 9 US cents each.
The 2023 speech, as reported, also says 14 million bets are placed online each day. That is fewer bets than the number of people said to be betting.
What the surveys actually measured
Real surveys exist, but they ask different questions of different people. GeoPoll’s 2026 survey found that 54% of Nigerian respondents had bet in the past 12 months, the lowest of the six African markets it covered (Kenya was highest at 64%, Ghana at 60%). It reached 526 people by SMS, WhatsApp and app between 24 June and 16 July 2026, and GeoPoll states that its figures are not adjusted to national population estimates.
TGM Research reported 51.7% of adults betting on sports in a year, but that comes from an online panel, with fieldwork in October 2022, so it covers internet users who join survey panels and is four years old. NOIPolls, the only nationwide phone poll we found, reported 36% in 2017 and 39% in 2019 from 1,000 respondents. Its 2017 wording counted people who either bet or know someone who does, which is not a count of bettors.
None of these figures is weighted to describe all Nigerian adults. Read honestly, they say that between roughly four in ten and just over half of the people reached by phone and online surveys report betting. They do not say that 60 million people bet every day.
What the better data says about bettors
Among Nigerian respondents in GeoPoll’s 2026 survey, 81% of bettors name football as what they bet on most, 96% place bets on a mobile phone, and 73% of the betting audience are men. Only 9% spend $50 or more a month, against 17% in Uganda. These are survey respondents, not the whole population, but they describe a mobile, football-led market in which heavy spenders are the exception.
Even good survey data gets misquoted. A widely shared figure says 17.76% of Nigerian bettors bet every day. The numbers are GeoPoll’s, but they describe six countries together: Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. GeoPoll published no betting frequency for Nigeria alone, so the figure is attached to the wrong country.
Why “sure odds” are not sure
The same research ran ten Premier League seasons (3,800 matches) and three NPFL seasons through the maths of the “sure odds” that fill betting slips. Of 1,032 Premier League favourites priced at 1.50 or shorter, 773 won and 259 did not: a “sure” favourite fails about one time in four. At those prices, 76.4% had to win for a bettor to break even, and 74.9% did.
Stack the legs and the slip collapses. A ten-leg slip built from each week’s shortest-priced Premier League favourites won just twice in 278 weeks. In the 112 NPFL rounds with ten played matches, the home side never won all ten.
Why it matters
Figures like these shape debates on regulation, taxation and advertising, particularly since a Supreme Court judgment of 22 November 2024 left each state to regulate gaming on its own territory. A number nobody can trace is a weak foundation for any of it. Before repeating a betting statistic, it is worth asking three questions: who counted, how many people did they ask, and when?
Betting is for adults only (18+) and carries financial risk. It is not a way to make money. If it stops being fun, take a break and talk to someone you trust.