Sports Betting

The sports betting industry is one of the industries that without a doubt has massively benefited from the digitalisation. Instead of going to betting offices people can easily place their bets on their smartphone or computer, wherever they are at the moment. This has led to the betting industry growing rapidly in past years, which can be dangerous especially in developing countries.

Africa is one of the economies where the sports betting industry has seen even greater growth than in developed countries. The expansion of the internet to developing countries in recent years has made sports more international and with it comes the sports betting. Especially in developing countries where the poverty rate is high sports betting specifically attracts poor people. With few regulations on the labour market, many people have to work hard for only a small salary. Sports betting offers an easy way to earn money. Many of these poor people could never earn as much money working as they have the possibility to win in sports bets. The possibility of earning easy money betting combined with easy access makes sports betting very attractive in developing countries but it leads to already poor people only losing more money. Often this money is not even kept in the country but goes to a betting firm in a developed country. That is also bad for the development of those countries, as money that could be used for innovation leaves the country and goes to an already developed country. For that reason, developing countries facing these problems should quickly implement guidelines for sports betting to stop this worrying development. But not only developing countries face problems with sports betting.

Especially among young people, the easy accessibility of online sports betting has caused many young people getting addicted to sports gambling. Shady betting offices are places young people are not likely to go to but nowadays there are online sports betting websites and apps that have modern designs that appeal to young people and offers like “Put in 100£ and play with an additional 100£” make more and more young people start getting into sports betting. Especially for younger people who maybe just turned 18 a sports betting addiction can be very dangerous for their future. If you get into debt gambling you might have to give up further education options in order to work and earn money now. Over the long run, this could impact the education of a country. Sports betting, therefore, has to be further regulated, especially on the newly emerging online market.

With internet connection spreading across the world and to developing countries the sports betting industry is, and is expected to grow at a fast rate. This creates new problems that weren’t there before and that have to be addressed, because with all the excitement that sports betting brings along it also brings a lot of risks for people and for emerging countries.

Photcredits: https://www.christianrocconi.com/2019/03/12/come-vincere-alle-scommesse/